
Class rl 1 1, 9895 

Book Ml . 



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4 *6 f 



A CENTURY OF AMERICAN WOOL 
MANUFACTURE. 

[From the Bulletin of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers, September, 1894.] 



INTEODUCTIOIsr. 



The following statistical history of the wool manufacture in the 
United States was written to accompany the special report on that 
industry in the Eleventh Census. Its preparation was suggested 
by Superintendent Porter because the Eleventh Census marked 
the close of the first one hundred years of the machine manufac- 
ture of wool in this country, and it seemed to him, and to others, 
highly appropriate that the statistical record of the industry in 1890 
should be preceded by a concise review of its condition at each 
of the census decades embraced in this completed century of the 
existence of an important national industry. It seemed to the 
Superintendent the more desirable to incorporate such a historical 
sketch in the publications of the Eleventh Census, because the 
Tenth Census had carried very full sketches, of a similar charac- 
ter, relating to the development of the iron and steel manufacture, 
the silk manufacture, the cotton manufacture, and several of the 
minor manufactures, while the report on wool manufacture was 
confined to the bare statistical tables. 

After the completion of the report and prior to its publication, 
there occurred a change in the office of Superintendent of the 
Census, Mr. Porter resigning, and being succeeded in time by 
Hon. Carroll D. Wright, the Commissioner of Labor. This 
change in the superintendency was followed by some modifications 
of the plans and methods of the office ; and the superintendent 
suggested that the historical portion of the report on wool manu- 
facture be omitted, in order to confine the text more strictly to 
the analysis of the statistical tables. 

The suggestion was one with which the Special Agent was the 
more willing to comply, because it was accompanied by a cour- 
teous tender of the material or " copy," for the personal use of 
the author, in whatever manner he might see fit. He has con- 
cluded to give it publication in the pages of the Bulletin. As a 
history of the American wool manufacture, it has interest to all 
our rerders, and its appropriate place is in the pages of a publica- 



tion devoted exclusively to that industry. Some of the informa- 
tion here collected together has never before been published. 
Much of it has been lost, or as good as lost, in isolated publica- 
tions, beyond the reach of any one not armed with an official 
search warrant for its discovery. 

It should be said, however, that this sketch was purposely con- 
fined to the merest outline, without the coloring of personal 
opinion, as the character of an official report seemed to require. 
Had the writer been preparing a book for the general public which 
aimed to develop the history of this industry in any other than the 
purely statistical aspect, his work would have been very different, 
much more congenial, and, he ventures to think, more entertaining 
and more valuable. Such as it is, he believes its preservation in 
this Bulletin will serve a useful purpose. 



The Eleven Census completes the statistical record of the 
first century of woolen manufacture in the United States 
by the factory system, as now understood and developed. 
As a preliminary to the present report I propose to recall 
briefly the features of this one hundred years of growth in 
wool manufacture, as revealed in the census and other statis- 
tical records, with a view of indicating the points and periods 
of its greatest development, the obstacles with which it has 
had to contend, and the deficiencies which have heretofore 
marked it. 

A sketch of the early history of American wool manu- 
facture appeared in the census of 1860, to which the present 
review is somewhat indebted, and to which it adds some 
materials then overlooked. 

It is observable, however, that the- progress of the industry 
since the review of 1860 was written has been much more 
rapid and striking than during the earlier two-thirds of the 
first century of its existence. In 1860 the manufacture 
consumed 98,379,785 pounds of greasy wool, a per capita 
consumption of 3.13 pounds, and the United States hardly 
took rank among the great wool-manufacturing nations of 
world. In 1890, its wool consumption approximated 434,- 
000,000 pounds in the grease, a per capita consumption of 



6.93 pounds, a consumption equal to that of France or 
Germany in the same year, and barely exceeded by that of 
Great Britain. It will thus appear that the progress of the 
industry since its history was last written for the census has 
been relatively greater than in any other country. The 
statistical record now presented entitles the domestic wool 
manufacture to a front rank among the industries of the na- 
tion. 

CONDITION OF THE INDUSTRY ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 

Prior to 1790 this industry was almost wholly confined to 
the household in this country ; and for many years later 
the great bulk of the domestic woolen goods worn by the 
people continued to be made in the homes, by the hand card, 
the spinning-wheel, and the clumsy wooden hand loom in- 
herited from the original settlers of the colonies, who brought 
them to America in substantially the same shape, so far as 
efficiency is concerned, that they had been utilized in England 
and on the Continent for centuries. 1 

Secretary Hamilton, in his report on manufactures, made 
to Congress Dec. 5, 1791, alluded to the fact that the 
household manufacture of wool was at that time carried 
on in different parts of the United States to a very in- 
teresting extent, adding, " there is only one branch of 
wool manufacturing which, as a regular business, can be said 
to have acquired maturity ; this is the manufacture of hats." 
Speaking of the household manufacture of fabrics he said : 
" There is a vast scene of household manufacturing which 
contributes more largely to the supply of the community than 
could be imagined without having it made an object of 
particular inquiry. Great quantities of coarse cloths, coat- 
ings, serges, and flannels, linsey-woolsey s, hosiery of wool, 
cotton and thread, coarse fustians, jeans and muslins, checked 
and striped cotton and linen goods, bedticks, coverlets, and 
counterpanes, tow linens, coarse shirtings, sheetings, towel- 

1 The fullest account of the part which the wool manufacture played in the domestic 
economy of the colonies will be found in William B. Weeden's Economic and Social 
History of New England, 1620-1798; see also Bishop's History of American Manufactures. 



6 

ing and table linen, and various mixtures of wool and cotton, 
and of cotton and flax, are made in the household w4y, and, 
in many instances, to an extent not only sufficient for a 
supply of the families in which they are made, but for sale, 
and even in some cases for exportation. It is computed in a 
number of districts that two-thirds, three-fourths, and even 
four-fifths of all the clothing of the inhabitants are made by 
themselves." 

The household manufacture, interesting and important as 
it was, was not in any economic sense the industry with 
which we are now dealing. It lacked the two chief essen- 
tials of modern manufacture : the association of capital and 
labor, and the application of labor-saving machinery ; but it 
was the embryo out of which factory manufacture grew, and 
the two were for many years so closely related and so inter- 
dependent that it was difficult, and perhaps impossible, for 
students and statisticians to properly distinguish between 
them. 

During the latter half of the eighteenth century there had 
been in progress in Europe, and particularly in England, an 
industrial revolution in all the textile industries, from which 
the American colonies were excluded by both natural and 
artificial causes. After 1769, in which year labor-saving 
machinery was first successfully applied to wool manufacture, 
in the spinning of yarns, as the result of the inventions of 
Richard Arkwright and his predecessors, the change from 
the household to the factory system of manufacture pro- 
ceeded with extraordinary rapidity in England, and this 
change had been practically accomplished in that country 
before it had even started in the United States. 

This was due to many circumstances incident to the con- 
dition of a new country in which the primitive forms of in- 
dustry naturally predominated. There were, besides, two 
special causes, allusion to which is essential to a full under- 
standing of the comparative slowness with which the factory 
system of wool manufacture was established in the United 
States during the latter part of the last century and the be- 
ginning of the present. 



I. It was by no means certain during any of this period 
that the United States could supply the necessary raw ma- 
terial for the manufacture of the clothing of the people. 

Secretary Hamilton, in the report above referred to, says 
that " to encourage the raising and improving the breed of 
sheep at home and promote an abundant supply of wool of 
good quality would certainly be the most desirable expedi- 
ent " for the purpose of " bringing to maturity this precious 
embryo " of wool manufacturing. He added that " this may 
not be alone sufficient, especially as it is yet a problem 
whether our wool is capable of such a degree of improve- 
ment as to render it fit for the finer fabrics." 

The domestic wool clip at that time, while it sufficed for the 
coarse fabrics of the household industry, was relatively much 
higher priced than English wools, nor was it sufficient in 
quantity, nor did it possess the qualities required to form 
the basis of a manufacture sufficiently good to successfully 
compete with the English woolens, then imported to the 
value of over 86,000,000 annually. There had been no rapid 
spread of the sheep introduced by the earlier colonists, not- 
withstanding many local regulations and the frequent offer- 
ing of bounties. Little is known regarding the breeds of 
these first sheep in America. They became the progenitors 
of the present stock of common sheep, known as the native 
sheep, which have been continually modified by crosses with 
each other. It is certain, however, that their wools were only 
adapted for the manufacture of the coarse, plain, strong 
fabrics of household manufacture enumerated by Secretary 
Hamilton. 

In 1785 the Pennsylvania Association for the Promotion 
of Agriculture offered a medal to the person who should 
first establish and keep within the State a flock of sheep of 
the true merino breed. The first introduction of the merino 
did not, however, occur until 1802. In that year Hon. R. R. 
Livingston, the American minister to France, sent home to 
his farm in New York State two pairs of French merino 
sheep from the Government flock at Rambouillet. Later 



8 



in the same year Col. David Humphreys, of Connecticut, 
then United States minister to Spain, shipped to the United 
States a flock of 100 Spanish merinos, the greater part of which 
arrived safely, and subsequently supplied the raw material for 
Colonel Humphreys' to establish the cloth manufacture at 
Humphrey sville, Conn. Other importations were made by 
several gentlemen, notably in 1809, by William Jarvis, of 
Vermont, then the consul at Lisbon, who sent upward of 
3,000 sheep of the choice breeds of Spain to his native State. 
It is believed that some 5,000 head of sheep reached this 
country during this period, and the breeds were widely 
disseminated through the New England and Middle States, 
and even as far west as Ohio. 

Shortly after these importations of sheep began, the 
embargo and other comjmercial restrictions which preceded 
the War of 1812 turned public attention very strongly 
toward wool-growing, and also toward its domestic manu- 
facture. The price of merino wool rose from $1 a pound in 
1807 to $2 and 12.50 during the war. It is clear that prior 
to the importations above mentioned the supply of domestic 
raw material was insufficient in character and quantity to 
permit of any systematic development of the wool manu- 
facture, and that the attempts to utilize imported wools 
could not have been successful in competition with the 
British manufacturers. 

The domestic production of wool in 1810 has been esti- 
mated on the basis of the census returns of that year at 
13,000,000 to 14,000,000 pounds in the grease, shorn from 
about 7,000,000 sheep, of which Vermont had 450,000, 
Massachusetts 399,000, Connecticut 400,000, and Pennsyl- 
vania 1,469,000. This estimate accords fairly well with the 
census returns of the value of wool manufactures in the 
same year. In 1812 it was estimated that the domestic clip 
had increased to 22,000,000 pounds; and it is generally 
agreed that during the years of commercial restriction the 
improvement in the quality and the increase in the quantity 
of the domestic clip were greater, relatively, than at any 
subsequent period in our history. 



9 



II. In the second place the half century immediately pre- 
ceding the organization of the federal government had been 
a period of extraordinary inventive progress in all the textile 
manufactures in Great Britain. With a full realization of 
the importance and value of these inventions, and with a 
natural desire to exclusively retain as long as possible the 
commercial advantages which the possession carried, the 
mother country had laid rigid embargo upon the exportation 
of any of these wonderful machines. The first of these 
statutes, enacted in 1774, a few years after Arkwright's suc- 
cessful inauguration of the factory system with his new ap- 
pliances, was entitled " An act to prevent the exportation to 
foreign parts of the utensils made use of in the cotton, linen, 
woolen, and silk manufactures of this kingdom ; " and its pur- 
pose, as set forth in the preamble, was " to preserve as much 
as possible to His Majesty's British subjects the benefits 
arising from these great and valuable branches of trade and 
commerce." The statute prohibited, under penalties of for- 
feiture and heavy fines, "the putting on board of any ship or 
vessel, not bound to some port or place in Great Britain or 
Ireland, of any tools or utensils commonly used or proper for 
the preparation, working up, or finishing of the cotton, 
woolen, silk, or linen manufacture." Another statute, even 
more stringent, was enacted in 1781, by which a year's im- 
prisonment was added to the penalties of forfeiture and the 
fine of .£200 previously imposed. This policy was rigorously 
enforced, notwithstanding some modifications of the law in 
1825, and again in 1833, until the year 1845, when machinery 
for the textile manufactures was for the first time omitted 
from the list of prohibited exports from England. 

No known instance occurred during the earlier decades of 
the existence of these laws, in which a perfect textile machine 
was smuggled into this country. Some few models were 
clandestinely introduced, but they were of so imperfect a 
character that it may literally be said that the United States 
was compelled to invent anew the machinery with which, 
gradually, and after a most trying probation, her textile in- 



10 

dustries were finally established. The more remarkable, 
therefore, is it that this country learned so quickly how to 
clothe itself, and maintained and developed a great woolen 
industry in the face of a nation which had such a tremendous 
start in the race. 

PREVIOUS CENSUSES OF WOOL MANUFACTURE. 

The only statistical record we have of the development of 
wool manufacture in the United States is that contained in 
the several federal census reports ; and for the first half cen- 
tury of our history as a nation the data contained in these 
reports are incomplete and unsatisfactory. 

No attempt to record the industrial resources and progress 
of the nation was made by the census prior to the year 1810. 
Necessarily in that year the statistics were gathered in a most 
desultory and unsatisfactory manner. 

The statistics of 1820 were not more satisfactory, and so 
little reliance was placed upon them that in 1830 all effort to 
record the industrial condition of the country was aban- 
doned. 

The census of 1840 again contained statistics of the woolen 
manufacture, as did also the censuses of 1850 and 1860. Not 
until the census of 1870, however, did the Census Office be- 
gin to gather these industrial statistics in a manner which 
justifies any great reliance upon their credibility ; and the 
special investigation upon this subject, made by George 
William Bond in the census of 1880, is the first upon which 
we can fairly depend as representing in a trustworthy manner 
the actual condition of this particular industiy at the time it 
was taken. 

At the beginning of the century the American people were 
practically dependent upon Great Britain for all the woolen 
goods they wore outside of the products of a purely house- 
hold industry. How important the American trade was to 
the woolen manufacturers of the mother country, and how 
large a proportion it comprised of all the woolen goods worn 
by the people of this country, is shown by the following 



11 



table taken from Brothers' History of Wool and the Woolen 
Manufactures of Great Britain, 1 which indicates the total 
British exports of woolen goods for the last ten years of 
the eighteenth century, with the proportion exported to the 
United States : 

STATEMENT SHOWING THE PROPORTION OF ENGLISH MAN- 
UFACTURES OF WOOLENS EXPORTED TO THE UNITED 
STATES FROM 1790 TO 1799. 



Tears . 



1790 
1791 
1792 
1793 
1794 
1795 
1796 
1797 
1798 
1799 



United States. 



£1,481,378 
1,621,796 
1,361,753 
1,032,954 
1,391,877 
1,982,318 
2,294,942 
1,901,986 
2,399,935 
2,803,490 



All parts of 
the world. 



£5,190,637 
5,505,034 
5,510,668 
3,806,536 
4,390,920 
5,172,884 
6,011.133 
4,936,355 
6,499,399 
6,876,939 



Percentage 

to United 

States. 



28.54 
29.46 
24.71 
27.14 
31.70 
38.32 
38.18 
38.53 
36.93 
40.77 



It is clear from the action of Congress in levying its first 
duties upon imported articles in 1789, that at the time of the 
organization of the federal government the United States 
was not regarded by her own people as in any economic 
sense a wool-manufacturing country, or as likely to dispute, 
for years to come, the acknowledged supremacy of Great 
Britain in that peculiar field of industry. While certain of 
the duties upon imported goods imposed by the first tariff 
act of July 4, 1789, were intended to be protective in their 
character, and were imposed for the avowed purpose of the 
" encouragement and protection of manufactures," the duty 
of 5 per cent, established upon all manufactures of wool was 
not intended as a protective duty, and was not expected to 
result in building up a domestic woolen manufacture. In 
the debates that preceded the adoption of this measure the 

1 Samuel Brothers, '« Wool and Wool Manufactures of Great Britain," page 144. 



12 



subject of wool manufacture was hardly mentioned, nor was 
there any recognition of the existence of a domestic manu- 
facture which could be promoted or extended by impost 
duties. 

EARLY ADVENTURES IN WOOL IMANUFACTURINO. 

Nevertheless, attempts to establish such an industry had 
already taken place in an earnest and even heroic fashion. 
That of the Hartford (Connecticut) Manufacturing Company 
was perhaps the most notable. It was inaugurated in 1788 
by means of a subscription paper circulated in Hartford, 
Windsor, Farmington, Weathersfield, and Middletown. The 
capital proposed was XI, 250, in 125 shares of <£10 each, and 
at the head of the thirty-one subscribers was Col. Jere- 
miah Wadsworth. The company was organized on May 2 
of that year, and the General Assembly of Connecticut passed 
a resolution exempting the manufactory from any tax or 
assessment on the buildings it used for the term of five years. 
It also exempted all persons who constantly labored in the 
manufactory from the payment of a poll tax for a period of 
two years. By January, 1789, cloth enough had been made 
to justify placing it upon sale. These cloths were not of bad 
quality in view of the ramshackle machinery and unskilled 
labor employed and the poor quality of the raw material. 
But English goods, after paying the duty of five per cent, 
undersold them in the town where they were made, and gave 
much better satisfaction besides. 

Dec. 10, 1794, the Hartford company announced a divi- 
dend of 50 per cent, on the original shares, to be paid in 
the finished goods of the company, and this was the first and 
only dividend paid until the closing of the manufactory on 
Aug. 24, 1795. At that date the company announced 
that the time had expired for which the proprietors had en- 
gaged to pursue the business, and that a final settlement of 
the concern had become necessary. The property was sub- 
sequently sold at auction, and consisted of forty pieces of 
finished goods, 4,000 pounds wool, eight looms, two hand 



13 



carding machines, one spinning jenny, one twisting machine, 
and other implements, dyestuffs, etc. 

The experience of the Hartford Woolen Company was not 
greatly different from that of several other experiments in 
the same direction at about the same time. About 1789 a 
woolen mill with about the same capacity as that at Hartford 
commenced operations at Stockbridge, Mass., and in 1790 
another at Watertown. So that at the time of the First 
Federal Census, that which begins the century of progress 
which the Eleventh Census closes, there were but three 
woolen factories (using that term in the sense that we now 
use it, and excluding the neighborhood carding and fulling 
mills) in the whole United States. They had a capacity of 
about 15,000 yards per annum, and their product was esti- 
mated to be worth $75,000. 

In 1794, the first woolen factory operated by power was 
established at Byfield, Mass., with Arthur Scholfield, and 
other English operatives, in charge. By common consent, 
the establishment of the Byfield mill is now accepted 
as the true date of the founding of the factory manufac- 
ture of wool in the United States. Up to that time the 
carding of wool had everywhere been done by means of the 
hand card. As the carding is the initial step in the manu- 
facture, and as hand-carding necessarily makes uneven yarn, 
resulting in imperfect cloth, the introduction of the carding 
machine properly determines the establishment of the wool 
manufacture by machinery among us. The first carding ma- 
chine at Byfield was made with a single cylinder, after which 
two double machines, with two cylinders, were made, and the 
three machines placed in the Byfield factory, where they 
were tended by James Scholfield, then eleven years old. 

EFFECT OF THE EMBARGO AND WAR OF 1812. 

Little or no further advance in the woolen manufacture, 
either in quantity or quality, occurred in the United States 
until a period just prior to the embargo of 1807. The em- 
bargo was followed by the non-intercourse act of 1809, and 



14 



the war with England in 1812, during which all commercial 
intercourse was prohibited, and the import duties doubled. 
When the people of the United States were thus suddenly 
compelled to manufacture a large variety of articles which 
they had heretofore chiefly or largely imported, they proved 
themselves abundantly able. During the five years prior to 
the War of 1812 there was no industry so prominent in the 
public eye as the manufacture of wool. Domestic manu- 
facture in the family by the hand loom began to i>e supple- 
mented by the associated effort and improved machinery of 
the factory. The fame of the new merino flew from farm to 
farm, and as fleeces grew heavier, and as prices advanced, 
the finest rams of this stock commanded, in some cases, 
|1,000 each. Factories were built, surplus farm labor was 
•diverted to the mills, thus raising the price of rural labor, 
making a market for superabundant produce, and inspiring 
hope and confidence, resulting, in 1810, in a product of wool 
manufactures to the value of $25,608,788, according to the 
figures returned by the census of that year. This value in- 
cluded both the factory product and the household manu- 
factures of wool. The census reported the existence of 
twenty-four woolen factories, and fulling mills to the number 
of 1,682, of which 427 were located in New York and upward 
of 200 each in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsjdvania. 
The number of yards of cloth fulled was stated at 5,452,960, 
with a value of $4,117,308. 

Of the twenty-four woolen factories in existence, four 
mills, including the three above named and one at Pittsfield, 
Mass., were the only establishments engaged in making 
fine cloth. Of the remainder nine, making coarse cloths, 
had an annual capacity of about 10,000 yards each, 
and the factory product of cloth was estimated at 200,000 
yards, worth from $1 to $10 a yard. The estimate of woolen 
cloth made in families in that year was 9,528,266 yards, so 
that the factories produced about one-fiftieth of the total 
product of the country. The value placed upon the total 
product, $25,608,788, was an average value of about $2.65 
per yard. 



15 

At the outbreak of the War of 1812, factories for making 
army and navy cloths, blankets, negro cloths, and broad- 
cloths, the great staple woolen manufactures of that time, 
sprang up in different parts of the country, stimulated by 
the enormous rise in the price of these necessities. Broad- 
cloths are said to have sold readily at $ 8 to $12 a yard. 
Many cotton mills were diverted to the manufacture of 
woolen goods. 

This period was also notable for the first introduction of 
steam into American woolen, mills ; and the spinning jenny, 
first introduced in America at the Peace Dale (Rhode Island) 
factory, in 1804, began to be commonly used. This multi- 
plication of woolen factories continued up to the year 1815 
and the close of the war. The State of New York granted 
no less than twelve charters for woolen factories during the 
year 1812. 

One accompaniment of this extraordinary activity in manu- 
facturing was particularly notable. Allusion has been made 
to the impossibility of obtaining machinery and models from 
England, by reason of the rigid embargo of that country. 
The result was to stimulate original inventions, many of 
which were of great and permanent merit. Two hundred 
and thirt} T -seven American patents were issued in 1812, a 
large proportion covering apparatus for spinning, weaving, 
and other processes in the manufacture of wool, cotton, flax, 
and linen. Notable among thern was a portable or family 
spinning frame, invented by Rev. Burgiss Allison, of Phila- 
delphia, which carried ten or twelve spindles, and spun wool 
to any fineness required. Improvements in the loom were 
also numerous, and the experiments with power looms now 
begun by Francis C. Lowell led ultimately to the construc- 
tion of the first successful American power loom, put into 
operation on cotton goods at Waltham, Mass., in 1816. 
The Lowell power loom was, however, preceded by the 
power loom invented by Thomas R. Williams, of Rhode 
Island, for weaving saddle girths and other webbing, for it is 
stated by Mr. Roland G. Hazard that these looms were 



V 



16 



started at Peace Dale, probably in 1813, certainly not later 
than 1814. After they had been fully tested, Roland Haz- 
ard purchased four of them for $300 each, and in 1814 or 
1815 they were in successful operation. The date of the 
starting of these four looms is fixed by the fact that with the 
money obtained by their sale to Roland Hazard, Thomas R. 
Williams bought a site and erected a mill at Rocky Brook, 
near Peace Dale. This purchase is known to have been made 
in the fall of 1815. It has been claimed that power looms 
were first started at Judge Lyman's woolen mill in North 
Providence in 1817. Peace Dale antedates this at least two 
years, and claims to be the place where the first power looms 
were successfully operated on woolen goods in America, if 
not in the world. 1 Nearly all the machinery employed in the 
factory manufacture of wool during the first quarter century 
of our national existence was not only of domestic construc- 
tion but of domestic invention as well. 

Nor should we overlook in this connection the remarkable 
invention of Amos Whittemore, of Massachusetts, of the 
machine for the manufacture of cotton and wool cards, 
patented in 1797, described in a Congressional report as a 
splendid specimen of " construction, precision of movement, 
rapidity of performance, and perfection of execution," a 
machine which was the genesis of all mechanical contrivances 
for making card clothing, and an invention which materially 
assisted in promoting the extension of both the woolen and 
cotton manufacture in this day of its struggling infancy. 

THE REACTION AFTER THE WAR. 

At once upon the declaration of peace at Ghent, the impor- 
tation of English woolens was resumed, and the young 
industry, which had been suddenly created by the war, was 
as suddenly prostrated. The total value of woolens and cot- 
tons imported in the fiscal year 1816 was about $70,000,000, 

1 Samuel Batchelder, in his " Introduction of the Cotton Manufacture in the United 
States," says : " Immediately after the power-loom was put into operation at Waltham 
measures were in progress for its introduction into Rhode Island from a difficult source 
and of a different construction." 



17 



paying an acl valorem duty of 5 per cent. Mills all over the 
country went to the wall, their proprietors finding that what- 
ever progress they had been able to make in the manufacture 
during their eight years' possession of the home market still left 
them far behind the English in the quality of their fabrics. 1 

They found themselves handicapped in every direction. 
There was a distressing lack of a domestic wool supply of the 
qualities required for better grades of goods. There was a 
great scarcity of superior workmen trained to the manufac- 
ture and familiar with its niceties. Their machinery was far 
inferior to that of their foreign competitors, not only in its 
capacity for rapid work, but also in the quality of the prod- 
uct it produced. There naturally followed a swift revival 
of the old preference for foreign goods, which had disappeared 
under the patriotic sentiment aroused by the war, and had 
been preached against by governors in their messages, and 
practised against by the habit of Presidents, Congressmen, 
and whole State Legislatures, of appearing in garments pro- 
claimed to be wholly of domestic manufacture. Secretary 
Gallatin reported that two-thirds of the clothing worn by the 
American people at this time, outside of the cities, was of 
household manufacture. But contemporary annals make it 
evident that the close of the war was followed by a species 
of craze for the purchase of foreign goods, which were 
crowded into the country at prices which seemed phenome- 
nally low in comparison with those recently paid for domestic 
goods. It was a veritable reaction, and the wool manufac- 
ture was in a position to suffer the severest effects from it. 
Between the competition of the household products on the one 
hand, and the foreign goods on the other, it found itself 
stranded. Many of the manufacturers had rushed into the 
business, stimulated by the extraordinary rewards held out, 
with little or no knowledge of the methods and requirements 
of the manufacture, with insufficient capital, and with loose 

x The revulsion in the industry of wool-growing was equally complete. At this time 
full-blooded merinos sold for $1 apiece. Bucks had been sold during the war for $1,000 
apiece. Wool did not materially rally in price for the nine succeeding years, and during that 
period most of the full-blood flocks of the country were broken up or adulterated in blood. 
— Randall's Practical Shepherd, page 21. 



18 



and unbusinesslike methods. All the'circumstances warrant 
the belief that the contemporary records of the suffering and 
disaster which now befell them are not exaggerated. In this 
emergenc} r the wool manufacturers turned to Congress, 
and the result of their representations, and those of other 
manufacturers, particularly the cotton manufacturers, was 
the passage of the tariff act of 1816. 

THE TARIFF AND THE WOOL MANUFACTURE. 

The unfortunate experience of the wool industry follow- 
ing the close of the war has been so frequently duplicated in 
the history of the industry in this country as to attract the 
attention of all economic writers on the subject. The rela- 
tions of the industry to the tariff have been held in some 
quarters to afford a partial explanation of these recurring 
waves of prosperity and depression. Others have insisted 
that they have been merely the reflex of the commercial 
condition of the country, and equally characteristic of 
every industry. The discussion of this question is beyond 
the purview of this report. Nevertheless no review of 
the history of the industry in the United States can ignore 
the fact that the woolen manufacture has been more 
closely associated with tariff legislation, and with trade con- 
ditions determined by that legislation, than any other indus- 
try. It is the only considerable American textile industry 
that has been subject to duties upon its chief raw material or 
that has been dependent for its supplies of that raw material, 
in such large degree, upon both foreign and domestic sources. 
For this and for other reasons the statistical and legislative 
history of the industry blend and run into each other at 
every point, and it is impossible to fairly present the one 
without frequent reference to the other. It is necessary in 
any intelligent survey of its development to state the charac- 
ter of the tariff legislation affecting it from time to time. It 
has been the endeavor of the special agent making this report 
to divest his statements regarding the tariff of any color 
imparted by preconceived opinions regarding the advantages 



19 

or disadvantages of protective duties in connection with the 
development of the woolen manufacture in the United States. 
Allusions to the tariff in this report are confined to the bare 
historical presentation of all the elements which have had to 
do with the development of the industry at any stage or 
period. 

CONDITION OF THE INDUSTRY IN 1816. 

A number of petitions from wool manufacturers in all parts 
of the country preceded the passage by' Congress of the tariff 
act of 1816. In these petitions it was stated that there was 
invested in the woolen manufacture in 1816, $12,000,000, 
and that the factories consumed in their manufacture $7,- 
000,000 worth of wool. They placed the value of the woolen 
goods manufactured at this time at $19,000,000 (exclusive of 
the domestic industry), and the number of persons regularly 
employed at 50,000. These figures were undoubtedly ex- 
aggerated, but they serve to show that a most extraordinary 
development had distinguished the woolen manufacture since 
1810. 1 

On March 6, 1816, the House Committee reported on these 
petitions that the wool manufacture was entitled, from its 
progress, promise, and nature, to the same degree of con- 
sideration as the committee had accorded, in a previous re- 
port, to the cotton manufacture. By the law that was 
subsequently passed, the duty on woolen manufactures, 
except blankets, rugs, and worsted or stuff goods, was fixed 
at twenty-five per cent, for three years from June 30. The 
minimum principle by this act for the first time applied to 
cotton cloths, and which was, in effect, a specific duty of six 
and a quarter cents a yard, was not applied in the woolen 
schedule. So that, while nominally the degree of protection 
accorded the two industries was the same, it was not in fact 

1 Messrs. Arthur W. Magill and William Young, whose estimates were accepted by the 
House Committee of Ways and Means, stated, in a letter to the chairman, that twenty- five 
establishments were then engaged in the manufacture of woolen cloths in Connecticut alone, 
employing 1,200 persons, besides as many more hands indirectly. Their capital was 
$450,000, and they probably made 75,000 yards of narrow and 25,000 yards of broadcloths. 
As many as 500,000 yards were supposed to be made annually in families. The manu- 
facture was capable of an increase throughout the Union of 25 to 30 per cent, per annum. 



20 



the same. By this act wool was for the first time made 
dutiable, a uniform rate of fifteen per cent, being fixed. 

The act of 1816 was based upon the report of Alexander 
J. Dallas, Secretary of the Treasuiy, who suggested three 
classifications of manufactures, according to the degree of 
their production in the United States. In Class one he 
grouped the articles of which the home supply was equal to 
all the demands of the country. Class two contained the 
articles which could only be produced in part, and Class three 
articles but slightly grown or produced here, or not at all. 
For Class one he suggested a standard of thirty -five per cent, 
duty. For Class two, which included woolens and cottons, 
the proposed rates varied from twenty per cent, on iron to 
twenty-eight upon woolens and thirty-three and one-third on 
cottons. 

The general condition of both these textile industries re- 
mained most unsatisfactory to those engaged in them. A 
duty of 25 per cent, upon woolens, accompanied by a duty 
of 15 per cent, upon the raw material, involved no very dras- 
tic protection. Petitions soon began to pour in upon Con- 
gress again, complaining of the inadequacy of the law of 1816, 
and praying for a new measure of relief. These petitions 
came from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New 
York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland. They were 
largely signed, often forcible in statement and sometimes 
pathetic in their appeal. One petition from Oneida county, 
New York, is fairly typical of them all. It stated that that 
count}^ contained a greater number of cotton and woolen manu- 
factories than any other in the Sate, and that $600,000 was 
invested in them. "In spite of the utmost efforts of their 
proprietors, more than three-fourths of them remained closed, 
some of their owners having been wholly ruined and others 
struggling under the greatest embarrassments." They could 
not believe that the Legislature of the Union " would remain 
an indifferent spectator of the widespread ruin of their 
fellow-citizens, and look on and see a great branch of in- 
dustry, of the utmost importance in every community, pros- 









21 



tratecl under circumstances fatal to all future attempts at 
revival, without a farther effort for relief." 

1816-1820. 

Such was the general condition of the wool manufacture, 
barring a perceptible revival in 1819, when the census of 
1820 was taken. The returns for manufactures made at this 
census were so incomplete and fragmentary that no attempt 
was made to statistically present them. In the year 1823 
the State Department, in response to a resolution of Con- 
gress, did prepare an abstract of these returns without any 
attempt at their analysis. They have been regarded as of 
little value as indicating the condition of any of the manu- 
facturing industries of the country at that date. There were 
whole counties in several States from which no returns what- 
ever were received. Nevertheless a study of these returns 
throws a good deal of light upon the conditions of manufac- 
turing which then prevailed, and the returns have a historical 
value not heretofore appreciated. 

They indicate very clearly the conditions surrounding the 
manufacture of wool in several States. They show that this 
manufacture was confined exclusively to fabrics variously 
denominated as broadcloths, narrow cloths, plain cloths, cas- 
simeres, satinets, kerseys, kerseymeres, flannels, and blankets, 
and to the fulling and dressing of home-made cloth and the 
carding of rolls and the spinning of yarns for household 
manufacture. 

The relative quantity of these fabrics made was about in 
the order the}*" have been named above. The broadcloth 
mills were the most common, but nearly all of them made 
also cassimeres and satinets. 

The broadcloths were valued at from $2.50 to 17 per yard, 
and in some instances at $10 per yard. The narrow cloths 
were valued at from' $1.1 2 J to $1.75 per yard, and the satinets 
from $1.50 to $3 per yard. 

Comparatively few flannels were made, and even fewer 
blankets, the bulk of these goods being then supplied by im- 



1 / 

v 






22 



portations. The kerseys were a coarse cloth having the 
characteristics of the English say or serge, and the kersey- 
meres were a finer grade of these cloths. 

The manufacture of hats represented nearly as much 
capital as the manufacture of broadcloth, and the largest and 
most prosperous of the establishments engaged in woolen 
manufacture were those making hats. They employed wool 
and fur in about equal proportions. 

The largest cloth mill then in existence in the country, so 
far as these returns indicate, was located in Massachusetts, 
and employed a capital of $47,825. It placed a value of 
$35,676 upon its product, which consisted of broadcloths and 
cassimeres. These products were manufactured from 43,- 
700 pounds of wool and 3,300 pounds of cotton, which 
we're represented as having cost $18,764. The estab- 
lishment employed 46 men, 23 women, and 23 children, 
and paid annually $10,594 in wages. Its contingent ex- 
penses of operation were stated at $3,918. The amount 
paid in wages, averaging $115 per annum to men, women, 
and children, confirms the common belief that wages were 
as low in the United States as in England at that time. 

The return for this establishment contains a statement of 
the machinery in use which supplies a picture of a woolen mill 
of the best character in those days. This machinery consisted 
of four carding engines, one picker, three jennies, 516 spindles, 
one roper, six broadcloth looms, and two cassimere looms. 
The finishing machinery was not enumerated, but the primi- 
tive character of this typical woolen mill of 1820 is graphi- 
cally illustrated by this enumeration of its other contents. 

Another Massachusetts mill employed three carding en- 
gines, one jack, two jennies of 140 spindles each, and annually 
converted 4,000 pounds of wool into broadcloth and satinets. 

Another Massachusetts mill making broadcloths and cassi- 
meres, valued its products at $15,181, which it manufactured 
from 12,000 pounds of wool and of cotton yarn, costing 
$8,000. Its capital was $32,000, and it paid $5,070 in wages 
to 9 men, 18 women, and 7 boys. Its equipment was re- 






23 



turned as 4 carding engines, 5 spinning jennies, one roper, 
3 shearing machines, 1 falling-stocks, and 19 looms. 

These were large mills for the time. The great bulk of 
the mills from which reports were obtained were one-set mills, 
and valued their products from a few hundred dollars up to 
the neighborhood of $10,000. 

There is a close similarity in all the reports between the 
value of the goods reported and the quantity and cost of the 
raw material consumed. The average cost of the wool em- 
ployed was about 40 cents a pound, and the value of the prod- 
uct about double the cost of the raw material used. 

Accompanying the returns of these woolen mills are the 
comments of their owners or the agent making the return 
upon the condition of this branch of manufacturing at this 
time. Almost without exception they reported their busi- 
ness as unsatisfactory. Many of the mills were apparently 
partially idle and a number of them wholly so. Others 
reported a fair demand for their goods, but at prices which 
left little or no margin of profit for the manufacturer. 

1820-1830. 

No census of manufacturing was attempted in 1830, and 
our knowledge of the advance of the wool manufacturing 
industry during the previous decade must be drawn wholly 
from the petitions and memorials presented to Congress and 
from private sources. 

Mr. J. Leander Bishop, in his History of Manufactures, 
states that the " fixed and floating capital " invested in the 
woolen manufacture was "about $40,000,000 in 1830; " but 
this statement we are obliged to dismiss as an imaginary 
estimate, as well as his further remark that the number of 
persons employed was 162,000. More than this number of 
persons worked in wool, for the spinning-wheel and the 
hand loom were utensils in active use in nearly every rural 
family. But such figures have no relation to the manufac- 
turing of wool as a factory industry, with which Mr. Bishop 
was dealing. 



24 



Indeed, it is clear that prior to this decade, 1820-1830, the 
establishment of a factory manufacture of wool had not been 
generally contemplated by the American people, and the 
debates upon the tariff of 1816 are full of disclaimers of the 
intention to introduce a system of factory manufacturing. 
The household industry was still of great and increasing 
importance, particularly in woolen fabrics, and Mr. Niles 
urged that the industrial independence of the new nation 
was to be accomplished by reliance chiefly upon these house- 
hold industries. 1 There existed on the part of the people a 
strong prejudice that factory life was derogatory to health, 
morals, and the general intelligence of the communities in 
which the mills had taken root. This prejudice had its 
origin in the knowledge which was already abroad of the 
demoralizing surroundings of factory life in England, par- 
ticularly in reference to child labor and unsanitary condi- 
tions. This prejudice remained for many years an intangible 
but effective obstacle in the way of the rapid establishment 
of the textile industries among us. 

But in the meanwhile the manufacturing interests were 
becoming steadily more diffused and better organized, and 
each Congress that assembled was called upon to consider 
some measure looking to their further encouragement and ex- 
tension. In 1819 there had come upon the country a new 
commercial crisis, due primarily to the close of a generation 
of war in Europe. Out of the falling prices and hard times 
which accompanied this financial disarrangement there 
gradually arose a strong public sentiment in favor of more 
effective protection to home industries than had heretofore 
existed. The attempt to increase the duties on textiles made 
in 1820 failed for the want of a single vote in the Senate ; 
but in 1824 a tariff act was passed which increased the duties 
on woolen goods, on the avowed ground that the act of 1816, 
while a moderately protective measure, had failed of the pur- 
pose to insure the domestic manufacture against the conse- 
quences of the better organized competition of England. 
This tariff fixed the duties on all woolen goods (except 

1 Niles' Register, 9 : 2, 12, 24, 268; Annals of Fifteenth Congress, first session, pages 84-88. 









25 



worsted stuff goods and blankets, which paid 25 per cent, ad 
valorem) at 30 per cent, until June 30, 1825, after which 
they were to pay a duty of 33J per cent. 

The act of 1824 proved quite as unsatisfactory to the 
woolen manufacturers as that of 1816, and for a reason eco- 
nomically sound. 

In fixing duties of 25 and 33-| per cent, on woolens, it im- 
posed a duty of 15 per cent, on wool costing under 10 cents 
a pound, and on wool costing over that sum 20 per cent, until 
June 1, 1825, 25 per cent, until June 1, 1826, and afterwards 
a duty of 30 per cent. The manufacturers insisted that a 
law making an increase of 15 per cent, in the duty on wool, 
accompanied by an increase of but 8 per cent, on woolen 
goods, was so contrived as to work the greatest embarrass- 
ment to the manufacture, and the event proved that they 
were right. The domestic clip of wool was wholly insuffi- 
cient for the requirements of the manufacturers, and but 
little of it was suitable for the finer class of goods. More 
than one-third of the wool they then manufactured was im- 
ported from abroad, and the difference in the cost of the raw 
material, in England and in the United States, ranged from 
50 to 70 per cent. The disadvantage thus increased was 
further accentuated by the action of Great Britain, which 
shortly after. the enactment of the tariff of 1824 reduced the 
duty on wool from sixpence a pound to one penny, and later 
to a halfpenny, a step taken to enable the English manufact- 
urer to continue his command of the American market, 
which was still, as it has long been, worth nearly as much to 
Great Britain as all her other markets combined. In 1822, 
according to James Bischoff, 1 the exports of woolens from 
Great Britain were as follows : 



European countries 
United States 
Other countries 



Cloths of 

various kinds. 

(Pieces.) 



65,974 
145,600 
103,378 



Stuffs. 
(Pieces.) 



336,166 
302,944 
253,249 



1 Bischoff : "History of the Woolen and Worsted Manufactures, 1842." 



26 



The Treasury reports indicate importations of foreign 
wools in the year 1828 aggregating 2,453,392 pounds l and 
valued at $491,945, and this quantity decreased to 669,883 
pounds in 1830, rising again to 5,622,000 pounds in 1832. 
Of the imports of 1828, 367,230 pounds came from South 
America, and most of the remainder (2,006,907 pounds) 
from European countries, England, Portugal, Spain, and 
Germany, the fine wools of these countries, and 594,520 
pounds of the coarse wools of Turkey. 

The domestic clip of the year 1830 has been estimated at 
17,829,000 pounds. The supply of this domestic wool generally 
came from the immediate neighborhood in which a mill was lo- 
cated. Thus the Massachusetts mills were supplied from western 
Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, New 
York, and partially from Pennsylvania and Ohio. Many of the 
manufacturers who testified before a congressional committee 
in 1828 were themselves wool-growers, and they confirmed 
the statement that at the prices paid them for their fleeces 
the industry was not a profitable one. 

The tariff of 1824 did not result in any increase in the 
domestic wool clip, although it was followed by a movement 
for the establishment of the fine-wool industry in the United 
States, which was pushed with great zeal for several years. 
The importation of Saxon merino sheep began in great 
numbers, 2 and the popular craze was still further stimulated 
by the tariff of 1828, increasing the duty on all wool, of 
whatever value, to four cents a pound and 40 per cent, ad 
valorem. There sprang up a mania for the production of 
fine wool, regarding which Mr. Randall says : " Every pro- 
ducer strove to obtain the finest, regardless of every other 
consideration. Size, weight of fleece, and constitution were 
totally overlooked." 3 Of the consequences of this mania, 
Mr. Randall further writes : " Yet the grower was feeding 
on hope. Fine wool did not rise to a high price until after 
the middle of 1830, and neither then nor at an} r subsequent 

1 This is a Treasury Department estimate. 
2 Henry S. Randall's report in New York State Agricultural Society's Transactions, 1841. 
3 " The Practical Shepherd," by Henry S. Randall, page 25. 






27 



period did the average price of Saxon exceed that of Spanish 
wool by more than 10 cents a pound, while at least a third 
more of the latter could be obtained from the same number 
of sheep, or the same amount of feed. When we consider 
this fact, and consider the superiority of the Spanish sheep 
in every other particular except fineness of wool, we cannot 
sufficiently wonder that from 1824 to 1840 the Saxons should 
have received universal preference, have sold for vastly higher 
prices, and that those who owned Spanish sheep should have 
made haste to cross them with their small and comparatively 
worthless competitors. In about 1840, however, a reaction 
commenced, and the tariff of 1846 (which established an even 
ad valorem duty of 30 per centum on all wools and on cloths) 
completed the overthrow of the Saxons." 

The anomalous relation of the duties on wool and woolens 
in the tariff of 1824 soon led to an organized movement 
among the wool manufacturers for relief. At a meeting in 
Boston, toward the close of 1826, a petition to Congress was 
adopted which jDointed out this anomaly. This petition, 
while admitting that a duty of 33 J per cent, would ordinarily 
operate in favor of the domestic manufacture, declared that 
by reason of the relatively higher duties on the raw material 
" the fact of the unprecedented depression of American 
woolen manufacturing establishments was undeniable." The 
petition was extensively signed throughout the country, and 
it resulted in the introduction of a bill on January 10, 1827, in 
conformity with the desires of the manufacturers. The ad 
valorem rates on woolen goods were not proposed to be 
changed by this bill, but four minimums were established, in 
imitation of the minimum principle applied to cotton goods. 
All woolens, whose actual value at the place whence imported 
was 40 cents or less per square yard, were to be dutiable as 
though costing 40 cents ; between 40 cents and 12.50, at 12.50 ; 
between $2.50 and $4, at the latter figure. The duty on raw 
wool was to be advanced to 35 per cent, after June 1, 1828, 
to 40 per cent, one year later, and wool costing between 10 
and 40 cents per pound was dutiable as costing 40 cents. 
This bill passed the House without very decided opposition, 



28 



but was defeated in the Senate by the casting vote of Vice- 
President Calhoun. The failure of this measure, which 
related solely to woolens, resulted in a renewed agitation for 
tariff legislation, which was fostered by the Harrisburg con- 
vention 1 of June, 1827, and finally resulted in the enactment 
of the tariff of 1828. This tariff, so far as it related to wool 
and woolens, was based upon the defeated bill of 1827. ]t 
was notable for the wide introduction of the specific form of 
duty. It fixed the duty on raw wool at 4 cents a pound, and 
in addition, 40 per cent, ad valorem in 1828, 45 per cent, in 
1829, and thereafter 50 per cent. The cheap coarse wools 
which had been admitted free of duty by the tariff of 1816 
were by this law weighted with a heavier duty than the fine 
wools, by reason of the operation of the specific form. 
These wools were costing at that time in Asia Minor and 
South America from 4 to 10 cents a pound. At the same 
time the law retained the low rate of 25 per cent, duty on the 
coarse woolen goods manufactured from these cheap wools 
that had existed under the law of 1824, and thus the anomaly 
complained of by the manufacturers, in respect to the act of 
1824, was continued and increased under the act of 1828, so 
far as this branch of the manufacture was concerned. The 
duties on woolen goods, as finally fixed, were as follows : 

On manufactures of wool, or of which wool shall be a component part 
(except carpetings, blankets, worsted stuff goods, bombazines, hosiery, 
mits, gloves, caps, and bindings), the actual value of which, at the 
place whence imported, shall not exceed 50 cents per square yard, shall 
be deemed to have cost 50 cents the square yard, and be charged 

1 The following is an extract from the address of this convention : " It is manifest to your 
committee that the growers and manufacturers of wool are suffering great pecuniary loss 
and ruinous embarrassment from the pressure of circumstances which threaten the general 
destruction of interests whose annual product, in sheep and manufactures of wool, would 
amount to the sum of $50,000,000, and probably had reached that value. The committee can 
not believe that these circumstances are of a temporary character. They think the time has 
arrived when the vast capital, exceeding $80,000,000 and perhaps amounting to the great sum 
of $100,000,000 vested in or variously applied to the breeding of sheep and manufacture of 
woolens, will be exceedingly diminished and lost to the national wealth, and a very numer- 
ous population, dependent on these branches of national industry, be dispersed if protection 
by the national legislature shall be longer delayed, for it is an unquestionable fact that many 
of our best and most economically conducted woolen factories are really losing concerns, not 
affording even the ordinary interest obtained on capital not earned in this business, but 
diverted to it from other pursuits, that it might have circulation and be made useful to its 
possessors and the public." — Niles' Register, Aug. 11. 1827. 



29 



thereon with a "duty of 40 per centum ad valorem, until June 30, 1832, 
and from that time- a duty of 45 per centum. 

Manufactures of wool, except flannels and baizes, the actual value of, 
etc., shall not exceed 33| cents per square yard, pay 14 cents per square 
yard. 

Manufactures of wool, etc., actual value exceeding 50 cents per square 
yard, not exceeding $1 the square yard, shall be deemed to have cost $1 
the square yard, and be charged thereon with a duty of 40 per centum 
ad valorem to June 30, 1829, and from that time a duty of 45 per 
centum ad valorem. 

Manufactures of wool, etc., value exceeding $1, and not exceeding 
$2.50 per yard, shall be deemed to have cost $2.50 per square yard, and 
be charged with a duty thereon of 40 per centum to June 30, 1829, and 
from that time a duty of 45 per centum. 

Manufactures of wool, etc., value, etc., exceeding $2.50, and not ex- 
ceeding $4 per square yard, shall be deemed to have cost at the place 
whence imported $4 per square yard, and a duty of 40 per centum shall 
be levied, etc., until June 30, 1829, and from that time a duty of 45 per 
centum. 

Manufactures of wool, etc., the actual value of which, etc., shall ex- 
ceed $4 per yard, a duty of 45 per centum ad valorem until June 30, 
1829, and from that time a duty of 50 per centum. 

This detail regarding the tariff legislation of the decade 
under consideration is essential to an accurate understand- 
ing of the peculiar economic status of the wool manufacture 
during that ten years. During the entire period it labored 
under a false adjustment of the duties on material and prod- 
uct, and in consequence it was affected by a continuous 
agitation, looking to the change of the tariff. At no period 
in its history have the conditions surrounding the manu- 
facture been more trying than during those ten years. The 
difficulties heretofore alluded to, as incident to their sur- 
roundings, were none of them so serious as those which arose 
from the absence of a fixed and logical economic status en- 
gendered by these falsely constructed laws. 

It is not surprising, therefore, that the actual progress of 
the industry in this decade was relatively less than in any 
other in our history. No statistical data exist whereby to 
establish the fact, but it is confirmed by all the evidence ac- 
cessible. It is particularly noticeable in contrast with the 
progress of the American cotton manufacture during the same 



30 



period. Favored by an abundance of home-grown raw ma- 
terial, and particularly favored by a minimum proviso in the 
tariff which gave them the command of the home market, 
the cotton mills multiplied, and their projectors prospered. 
Even at this early date it began to be recognized that the 
American coarse cottons were as good as the British fabrics, 
if not better. 1 

Just the contrary was true regarding the manufacture of 
wool. While there was a marked improvement in the 
quality and finish of domestic woolen goods during this period, 
they still remained generally inferior to those imported, and 
the popular prejudice in favor of the latter did not in the least 
abate. 

Mr. George William Bond, who enjoyed the advantage of 
a personal acquaintance with many of the wool manufactur- 
ers of that era, has summed up the situation as it then existed, 
as follows : 

The increased demand for wool, consequent upon the increased 
number of mills, became so great that the manufacturers had to 
go into the country at clip time to secure their supply for the year. 
This could be bought only for cash. To enable them to do this, 
many were obliged to mortgage their mills and machinery to their 
selling agents to obtain acceptances on which they could borrow 
the money. The clip of the country was still insufficient. The 
importation of wool and woolens continued under a tariff which 
was only nominally protective. Sooner or later nearly all of 
them failed, and their agents were obliged to take possession under 
their mortgages, many of whom soon went through the same ex- 
perience. 

The importations of woolen goods during this decade began 
at 17,238,954 in 1821, and were about the same (17,193,653) 
in 1829 ; but in the years 1822 and 1825 they reached the 
enormous totals of $11,752,505 and 112,017,468 respectively. 
The value of the mill products of woolen goods in 1830 was 
estimated by a congressional committee at 114,528,166. The 
most careful investigation of all the data at hand warrants 

i Nilee' Register, 22: 225; 24: 243. 



31 



the conclusion that fully one-half of the consumption (ex- 
clusive of the products of the household industry) was of 
foreign origin. 

An analysis of the imports entered for consumption 
in 1828 shows the characters of the foreign importations. 
Thus the blankets imported were valued at 1624,239, an 
amount which confirms the statement made before the con- 
gressional committee that it was impossible to manufacture 
blankets in the United States, under existing conditions, in 
competition with foreign countries. No blankets, except a 
few of the coarsest description for the use of the negroes in 
the south, were made at this time, the price of native wool 
being too high (25 to 28 cents) to warrant the undertaking. 
This fact is the more striking because the manufacture of 
blankets is very simple, easy, and cheap, the material being 
the greater part of the expense of manufacture. The duties 
collected on these importations of blankets were $156,059, an 
average ad valorem rate of 25 per cent. 

The imports of carpets were valued at -$581,946, duties 
$222,192, and they represented practically the entire con- 
sumption of the country. 

The importations of cloths and cassimeres were valued at 
$4,315,714, and they paid duties amounting to $1,437,132, 
an average of 33 per cent. The importations of dress and 
piece goods, commonly called "stuffs," for women's wear, 
were valued at $1,609,030, paying duties of $410,102, or 25 
per cent. The manufacture of this class of goods had not 
been undertaken, at that time, in the United States, and the 
importations represented the entire consumption of our 
people. 

These statistics are the best evidence that can be cited to 
test the soundness of the claim so frequently iterated during 
the decade in the petitions and memorials of the manufac- 
turers that existing conditions did not permit of a successful 
domestic competition . 
Wl A full insight into the internal condition of the wool manu- 
P ri facture of this time is afforded by the testimony given in 
January, 1828, before the House Committee on Manufactures 



"32 



by a number of the leading manufacturers of the country. 
The following is a summary of this testimony: 

S. Newton Dexter, of the Oriskany Manufacturing Com- 
pany, Whitesboro, New York, commenced 1810, making ker- 
seymeres and broadcloths. Hon. A. Tufts, of Tafts Manu- 
facturing Company, Dudley, Massachusetts, commenced 1824, 
capital, $40,000 ; loss, exclusive of interest, in eighteen months, 
$ 5,000. Colonel James Shepherd, of Shepherd Woolen Manu- 
facturing Company, Northampton, Massachusetts (the largest 
in the United States), capital, $130,000 ; made broadcloths 
•and cassimeres; lost in two years about $30,000. William 
Phillips, of Phillipsburg Factory, Walkill, New York; capital, 
$20,000 ; broadcloth. Abraham Marland, Andover, Massa- 
chusetts ; capital, $42,000 ; flannels altogether, to amount of 
3,200 pieces in 1827, with improving sales. William W. 
Young, Brandy wine, Delaware, commenced 1813 ; capital, 
$100,000 ; blue cassimeres and coarse wool satinets ; losing 
business since 1825. William K. Dickerson, Steubeuville, 
Ohio, commenced 1815 ; capital, $100,000 ; six to seven quarter 
broadcloths and some flannels ; losses in 3 years about $8,000. 
A. Schenck, Glenham Company, Matteawan, New York, in- 
corporated 1824 ; capital, $91,531 ; broadcloths ; lost in 1826- 
1827, $5,500, and in 1825-1826, $1,795; made also machin- 
ery in last year to amount of $30,000 or $40,000, which was a 
profitable business. James Wolcott, Jr., of the Wolcott 
Woolen Manufactory, Southbridge, Massachusetts, incorpora- 
ted seven years before ; capital, $126,000 ; broadcloths, princi- 
pally indigo blues; stock depreciated 50 per cent. ; lost in 1826, 
$23,095, exclusive of interest on capital ; not paying expenses. 
Jonas B. Brown, of Goodall Manufacturing Compau}^, Mill- 
bury, Massachusetts ; capital, $80,460 ; broadcloths and sati- 
nets ; latter a losing business. Joshua Clapp, Litchfield, 
Connecticut, also a factory at Northampton, Massachusetts ; 
uses his factory rent free ; made broadcloths; lost in 1825- 
1826, $8,995; including commissions, and in 1826-1827, $3,895. 
Benjamin Poor, of Saxton and Leicester factories, Worcestei 
and Middlesex counties, Massachusetts ; capital $150,000 



33 



loss to July, 1827, $26,394. Eleuteire Irenee Dupont, near 
Wilmington, Delaware ; capital, over $70,000 ; coarse cloths 
and kerseys for the army, of common country wool, and of 
coarsest country wool linseys for negro clothing ; business 
being always a losing one. Joshua W. Pierce, Salmon Falls 
Manufactory, Somersworth, New Hampshire ; capital, in 
November, $362,000 ; broadcloths only ; profits in 1825, 
,$6,772 ; losses, in 1826, $7,059. 

In these factories the aggregate quantity of wool consumed 
was 716,559 pounds. It was stated that purchasers generally 
preferred English goods ; they complained especially of the 
dyes of blue cloths, the others being as good as English. The 
manufacturers considered that they could make cloths as 
cheaply as the English, wool being of the same quality and 
price. More female labor and machinery were used here than 
in England. Four-fifths of the consumption of woolens (in- 
cluding that made in the household), was of American manu- 
facture, and the whole amount was estimated at $30,000,000 
annually. Small establishments and. medium capital an- 
swered better, under their sole proprietors, than incorporated 
companies. Manufacturing was considered favorable to 
morals, as the education of children was attended to in most 
of the large factories, particularly by Sunday Schools. The 
best wool, say half to full-blood merino, was preferred, but for 
negro cloths the coarse Smyrna and South American wools 
were employed. Fine and coarse wools were imported from 
Germany, Spain, Portugal, and England, and coarse from 
Snryrna, Adrianople, and Buenos Ayres. They varied much 
in price — Saxony cost 61 cents to $1.60 a pound ; Spanish, 
35 to 85 cents ; Merino, 30 cents to $1,25 ; Italian, 32J cents ; 
German coarse wool, 16 to 20 cents ; Russian, 13 ; Smyrna, 
16 to 22 ; spring w T ool, 30 to 41 ; pulled wool, 30 to 35 ; com- 
mon domestic (native), 20 to 25 cents. It was 50 to 75 per 
cent, higher than in England. Wool, costing 20 to 75 cents, 
was about half the price of the plain cloth. There was no 
wool more suitable for blankets than native wool, but its 
price had always been too high. 



34 



The woolen goods made by these manufacturers consisted 
of broadcloths, plain cassimeres, kerseys, kerseymeres, flan- 
nels, satinets, and negro cloths, or " linsey " — the latter a 
coarse fabric (made from Smyrna, Buenos Ayres, Adrianople, 
and the coarse grades of native domestic wool, costing from 
six to fourteen cents a pound in Boston), and made three- 
quarters of a yard wide. 

Kerseymeres were a narrow cloth, 31 inches wide, contain- 
ing from 14 to 16 ounces of washed wool per yard. 

Broadcloths were woven from 2J or 2J yards wide, and 
shrank in finishing to 1J or If yards in width. These cloths 
sold all the way from $2.50 to $10 per yard, according to 
quality, and were made in black, blue, and a few fancy colors. 
The prices of the plain cassimeres were generally about one- 
half those of broadcloths made of the same qualities and de- 
scriptions of wool. The blue cassimeres sold for $1.50 a yard 
in 1825, $1.30 in 1826, and $1.25 in 1827. The coarse cloths 
or kerseys, called army cloth, were finished 1J yards wide. 

The flannels were usually sold by the piece of 46 yards., a 
yard wide, the prices running from $10.50 to $13 per piece. 
The satinets sold for 80 cents to $1 a yard. 

The details furnished relating to the machinery of the mills 
were meagre, but sufficient to indicate how primitive this 
machinery continued to be. Several proprietors had adopted 
the Brewster spinning machine, some of them preferring it 
for spinning warp yarns, and the jenny for filling yarns, and 
others complaining of the difficulty of keeping it in order- 
There were other improved machines spoken of, the introduc- 
tion of which had considerably reduced the labor cost of 
manufacture, notably the " dressing machine," and the broad- 
power loom, both American inventions. The quality, style, 
and finish of goods had greatly improved within a compara- 
tively brief period. 

The data given regarding wages are valuable, because they 
enable a fairly accurate estimate of the great advance that has 
since occurred. Female weavers in the State of New York 
were paid from $2.50 to $3 a week, running one and often 



35 



two power-looms, each loom producing about 75 yards of 
kerseymeres per week. The other wages paid in the mill 
were as follows : 

Boss carder (per year) $400.00 

Machinist (per working day) 1.50 

Superintendent weaver (per working day) 1.38 

1 wool sorter (per month) ... 30.00 

1 assistant wool sorter (per month) ........ 20.00 

1 puller (per working day) 1.25 

1 presser (per working day) , 1.25 

2 finishers (per working day) . 1.25 

1 dyer (per working day) 1.25 

2 assistant carders (per Avorking day) . 1.00 

1 assistant dyer (per working day) 1.00 

1 watchman (per working day) 1.00 

3 laborers (per working day) .80 

24 female spinners and weavers (per week) 3.00 ~~ 

30 female spinners and weavers (per week) 2.50 — 

Boys and girls (per week) from $1.00 to 2.00 

These wages were for eleven hours' work. Pay was made 
half in cash and the remainder in the form of due bills on the 
factory store, current also at the neighborhood stores, which 
bills were redeemable at the factory in cloth. This method 
of paying help was very common in all parts of the country at 
this period, and the factory store was the usual accompani- 
ment of the factory itself. 

1830-1840. 

We come now to a period in the history of the industry of 
wool manufacturing in which its vicissitudes and difficulties 
were lessened, its methods improved, and its establishment on 
a successful business basis fairly completed. The decade from 
1830 to 1840 showed few of those violent fluctuations which 
marked its predecessor, and the progress of the industry, par- 
ticularly in the first half of the decade, was quite rapid, although 
confined exclusively to the simpler and more common products. 
Many causes contributed to this development. The country 
grew rapidly, constantly increasing the market for goods. 
Many notable advances in the machinery for wool-working 



36 



marked the decade, and not the least important among them 
were of American invention. Conspicuous among them were 
John Goulding's patent, which marked almost as great an 
advance in wool manufacture as the spinning jenny itself. 
Before this invention the length of the rolls issuing from the 
carding machines was limited to the breadth of the card, and 
the ends of the- rolls were spliced together by hand, with 
the aid of the billy. Goulding dispensed with the billy alto- 
gether, accomplishing with four machines what had formerly 
required five, supplying the endless roll, or roping, and en- 
abling manufacturers to produce yarn from wool at much 
less cost, .of better quality, and in greater quantities than b}^ 
the old process. 

The Goulding carding machine was first introduced about 
1824, and at the commencement of the next decade no new 
sets of cards were started on the old plan of manufacturing. 
The improvement not only threw out all the intermediate 
laborers (generally children from eight to twelve years of 
age), but it enabled the spinner to manage an increased 
number of spindles. The highest number operated by one 
man had been 120, which was now frequently increased to 
200. The old carding engines had generally a width of 24 to 
26 inches, a very few being 28 inches wide. The 40-inch 
cards began to make their appearance about this time, and 
the number of revolutions. of the cylinder was increased from 
about 75 per minute to 85 and 100. 

The year 1830 witnessed the incorporation of the Middle- 
sex Manufacturing Company at Lowell, with a capital of 
$100,000, soon increased to $750,000, the largest establish- 
ment for the manufacture of wool that had yet been started 
in the United States, and one of the most successful applica- 
tions, in this industry, of the corporate method of conducting 
manufacturing. 

Another stimulus to the industry was the tariff act of 1832, 
which again released the coarse wools, costing eight cents a 
pound and under, from all duty ; and they continued to be 
free, or practically so, until the tariff of 1861. The effect of 



37 



this legislation was to stimulate the manufacture of low-grade 
blankets, goods for negro wear, heavy kerseys for overcoatings, 
and other goods into which coarse wools entered, and the 
manufacture of which had been seriously disturbed by the 
tariff of 1828. 

The duties on goods imposed by this tariff were as follows : 
On blankets, 25 per cent. ; on Brussels, Turkey, and Wilton 
carpets, sixty-three cents per square yard ; on Venetian and 
ingrain carpets, thirty-five cents per square yard ; all other 
carpets, 25 per cent. ; on flannels, bookings, and baizes, six- 
teen cents per square yard; on wool hats or mixtures of 
wool, 35 per cent. ; on woolen and worsted hosiery and knit 
goods, 25 per cent. ; on shawls, merino, 50 per cent., worsted, 
10 per cent. ; on woolen yarns, four cents a pound, and 50 
per cent. ; on worsted yarns, 50 per cent. ; on worsted stuff 
goods, 10 per cent. ; and on all manufactures of wool not 
otherwise provided for, 50 per cent. 

The tariff changes of the decade were, however, so fre- 
quent, under the operation of the compromise tariff of March 
2, 1833, as to deprive the statistician of any safe basis upon 
which to found a judgment as to their general influence upon 
the progress of the industry. The value of the imports of 
woolen goods rose quite steadily during the decade until the 
crash of 1837, when they fell off from 124,637,881 in 1836 
(by far the largest value of woolen goods imported in any 
single year up to this time, and for many years afterward) to 
$10,808,485 in 1837. The average value of the imports for 
the decade was $13,950,772, as against an average value for 
the previous decade of $8,290,062. This average value was 
67.40 per cent, of the reported value of the domestic product 
for 1840. 

THE BENTON AND BARRY REPORT. 

The most complete picture of the wool manufacture as it 
existed in this decade is supplied by a pamphlet compiled by 
C. Benton and S. F. Barry, and published in 1837, in which, 
after giving a statistical view of the number of sheep in the 
United States in 1836, they added " An Account of the prin- 



o o 

OO 



cipal woolen manufactories in said States." They reported 
the existence of 1,549 sets of machinery located in fourteen 
States, which they classified according to the product upon 
which they were engaged, as indicated in the following table : 



NUMBER OF SETS OF MACHINERY AND DESCRIPTION OF 
GOODS MANUFACTURED IN 1836. 





05 

a 

CD 

s 


a 


*CO 
CO , 


to 

CD 

a 

"-£3 


to 

CD 
P 
PI 


m 

CD 

to 

.2 


.2 a 

sSTS 


m 

<D 


<4H 

o 

CO . 
+* CO 


States. 


,d 


^5 


S3 at 


ce 


« 


*S 


CD 


<DrS 

CO £3 




2 


O o 


°a 


o 


a 
o 


o 




o 


C3 cj 




c3 




-^ 








to c3 


to 


O 




CO 


CD 


CD 


CD 


CD 


CD 


"S^ 


CD 


H 




H 


GQ 




02 


DQ 


CQ 


m 


m 








344 


178 


574 


158- 


210 


24 


61 


1,549 


Total Northeastern States . 


411 


211 


111 


365 


99 


93 


24 


47 


950 




12 
31 


3 


15 
10 


5 

19 






1 
4 


. . . 


24 




10 


• . • 


43 




34 
187 


37 
150 


23 
59 


37 
195 


3 

77 








100 




18 


10 


10 


519 




41 
106 


4 
17 


" 4 
64 


16 
93 


9 


60 
15 


9 


37 


80 




184 










124 


189 


59 


79 


. . . 


14 


529 




234 

45 


100 
18 


60 
1 


100 

58 


40 
19 


r 51 
21 






351 






6 


123 










20 










20 






3 
3 


*8 


7 
4 


. . . 


2 
5 


. . . 


8 


20 






15 
















9 
6 


3 
3 


20 
5 


. . . 


38 
16 






70 


Ohio 






30 
















3 


. . . 


15 




22 






40 













The majority of these mills were one and two set mills, but 
there were several of large capacity. In Vermont were the 
Ascutney Manufacturing Company, at Perkinsville, operating 
nine sets on cassimeres and broadcloths, and G. Catlin & Co., 
at Burlington, operating 16 sets on broadcloths. In Massachu- 
setts were the Amesbury Company, 12 sets on flannels ; the 
Salisbury Company, 23 sets, also on flannels; the Middlesex 
Company, at Lowell, with 27 sets ; the Neponset Company, 
at Canton, 15 sets on cassimeres and satinets ; the New Eng- 
land Worsted Company, at Framingham, 10 sets on yarns; 



39 



and W. & D. D. Farnum's mill, at Waterford, 10 sets on 
broadcloth. One-third of all the machinery reported was in 
this State. In Rhode Island the largest single mill was that of 
T. R. Hazard, at Newport, operating six sets on negro cloths. 
The carpet mill at Thompsonville, with 12 sets, was the only 
large establishment in Connecticut. In Pennsylvania there 
was but one large mill reported, that of J. Brankroft & Sons, 
at Providence, operating 16 sets on flannels. Messrs. Benton 
and Barry estimated that of these 1,549 sets of machinery, 
150 were engaged exclusively in the manufacture of coarse 
foreign wool, at the average rate of 50,000 pounds per set per 
annum. They calculated the average consumption of the 
1,400 sets engaged upon domestic and fine imported wool at 
22,000 pounds per set per annum. They thus accounted 
for 7,000,000 pounds of coarse foreign wool, and nearly 
31,000,000 pounds of domestic and fine imported wool, in the 
factories, and they placed the consumption of the household 
manufacture at 12,500,000 pounds, or a total consumption 
of 50,500,000 pounds of wool in the grease. 1 By these 
figures they sought to confirm their estimate of the wool 
clip of 1836, which they placed at 41,917,321 pounds, which 
was an average of 3J pounds per sheep, from 12,897,638 
sheep. They calculated the value of this wool at $21,168,246, 
which was an average price of 50J cents a pound. One of 
the compilers was an extensive purchaser of wool for New 
England manufacturing establishments, and he supplied an 
interesting table of the average prices he paid for wool in the 
States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York, 
then the chief sources of New England supply, from 1827 to 
1836, as follows : 



1827 
1828 
1829 
1830 
1831 



36 


1832 


44 


1833 


29 


1834 


40£ 


1835 


58 


1836 



41 

52£ 

50 

57 
58 



1 The committee of the "Friends of Domestic Industry," who met in New York in 1831, 
reported that the proportion between the amount of wool worked up in factories to that in 
families was as three to two ; and that the value of the entire annual product of wool and its 
manufactures in the United States was $40,000,000. 



40 



The wool imports for the year ending September 30, 1836, 
as shown by a report made to Congress by the Secretary of 
the Treasury, were as follows : 

IMPORTS. 

• Pounds. Value. 

Total 12,687,621 $1,270,126 

Tree of duty, costing less than 8 cents per pound 11,0.33,010 $806,370 

Paying duty 1 654,611 463,756 

EXPORTS. 

Pounds. Value. 

Total 391,372 $66,189 

Tree of duty 127,439 $20,875 

Paying duty 263,933 45,314 

EXCESS OF IMPORTS. 

Pounds. 

Coarse wool 10,905,571 

Pine , 1,390,678 

Total 12,296,249 

The Benton and Barry statistics are excessive when meas- 
ured by the contemporary statistics of the census. Thus the 
census of 1840 returned 19,311,374 sheep, and a clip of 
35,802,114 pounds, which was equivalent to 1.84 pounds per 
head of sheep. This estimate of the average weight of fleece 
at that time is accepted by the Department of Agriculture, 
and it is not until 1870 that an average weight of fleece equal 
to that given- by Benton and Barry in 1836 was reached. 
Moreover, they give a value to the wool alone, grown in 1836, 
greater than the value of all the manufactures of wool re- 
ported by the census of 1840. Still again, in order to reach 
a consumption of wool approaching their estimate of the clip, 
they were obliged to reckon every set of machinery as con- 
suming its full capacity throughout the year. This is the 
obvious criticism upon their figures; and with this fact in 
view, we need not hesitate to materially reduce their esti- 
mates, both of the clip and the consumption. 

These investigators reached the conclusion that there was 
barely wool enough grown in the country at that time to meet 
the regular demand. "The machinery in operation," they 



41 

added, " is gradually but constantly on the increase ; " and it 
is evident from the whole context that they made their 
canvass at a time when the wool manufacturers were fulty 
employed and generally prosperous. 

In the midst of this progress came the great financial crash 
of 1837, from which the wool manufacture suffered more 
severely, perhaps, than any other industry. The operation of 
the compromise tariff, by which the reduction of duty upon 
the manufactured goods was in many cases greater than upon 
the raw material (by reason of the specific duty on the latter), 
tended to check any recovery from the depression that fol- 
lowed, and the census of 1840 was accordingly taken at a 
time when the condition of the manufacture was much less 
favorable than it had been five years earlier. 

This census showed the existence of 1,420 woolen factories 
and 2,585 fulling mills. Invested in the former was capital 
to the amount of $15, 765,124; the number of hands employed 
was 21,342, and the value of the product reported 120,696,999. 
Of this amount $16,765,562, or 81 per cent., was returned 
from the five States of Vermont, Massachusetts, Connect- 
icut, Pennsylvania, and New York. These figures have 
only to be compared with those given by Mr. Bishop, as for 
the decade ending 1830, to establish the extravagant nature 
of the latter. The average product of the 1,420 mills reported 
would be only $ 14,575, a fact sufficient to show that the great 
majority of these mills were the little neighborhood carding* 
establishments which were not properly included as woolen 
factories. If we may judge from these statistics, the propor- 
tion of the imported goods consumed during this decade was 
larger, in its ratio to the factory product, than at any period 
subsequent to 1800. 

1840-1850. 

The decade between 1840 and 1850 witnessed rapid growth 
in the domestic wool manufacture. The value of the jxroduct, 
as reported by the census of 1850, increased from $20,696,999 
to $49,636,881, or 140 per cent. The actual increase was 
not as great as these figures indicate, owing to the fact, before 



42 



alluded to, that the census of 1840 underestimated the value 
of the product of woolen mills in that year. Nevertheless 
the figures are conclusive that the decade witnessed a much 
wider development than the industry had attained at any 
previous period. The value of the products of the cotton 
mills increased during the same decade from 146,000,000 to 
•362,000,000. It appears, therefore, that the wool manufact- 
ure, while still far behind the cotton industry in the value of 
its product, was growing in a greater ratio. 

The census of 1850 reported 1,760 establishments engaged 
in wool manufacture, located in thirty-two States, using a 
capital of $32,516,366, and employing 47,763 operatives, — 
an increase of 26,421 over the number of employees reported 
in 1840. This number included 630 carding mills, employ- 
ing 1,093 operatives, and manufacturing products valued at 
81,739,476. 

For the first time figures were given of the amount of wool 
consumed in the domestic manufacture, which was given as 
70,-862,829 pounds, including both foreign and domestic. 
The census return of the domestic clip for that year was 
52,516,959, and the imports were 18,695,294 ; total, 71,212,253 
pounds. There is remarkable agreement between these 
figures of supply and consumption. The increase in the 
domestic clip had not kept pace with the increased require- 
ments of the manufacturers, and the percentage of imports of 
wool to the total supply rose from 21 in. 1840 to 26 in 1850. 

Neither had the domestic manufacture, gained perceptibly 
in the proportion of the home market held by it. The im- 
ports of woolen goods of all kinds rose in value from 
110,808,485 in 1840 to $19,620,619 in 1850, a rate of increase 
somewhat less than that shown by the census in the domestic 
manufacture. 

The wool manufacture in 1850 held the fifth rank among 
our domestic industries in the value of its products, being 
surpassed by boots and shoes, flour and grist mills, lumber mills 
(sawing and planing), and by the cotton manufacture. The 
only analysis of the products of woolen mills made in 1850 



43 

showed 82,206,652 running yards of cloth manufactured, and 
4,294,336 pounds of yarn for sale, " besides blankets and hats." 

Two changes in the tariff on woolens marked this decade. 
The act of 1842 imposed on woolen goods a duty of 40 per 
cent., which was an increase from 29 per cent, (the rate then 
in force under the operation of the compromise-tariff of 1833). 
The duty on wool was fixed at 3 cents. a pound and 30 per 
cent, ad valorem, a decrease from 4 cents a pound and 26 per 
cent, ad valorem, as the compromise-tariff rates then stood. 
But wool valued under 7 cents, which was free under the act 
of 1833, was made dutiable at 5 per cent. On the whole the 
readjustment of the tariff was of advantage to the manu- 
facturer. These rates of duty were in force for four years 
only. But during that brief period the domestic manufacture 
of the finer qualities of broadcloth made great progress. 

The influence of a wool duty on the manufacture of wool 
was strikingly illustrated in this particular branch of the 
manufacture under the subsequent tariff, that of July 30, 1846. 
That law reduced the duty on woolen goods in general from 
40 to 30 per cent., on flannels and worsteds to 25 per cent., 
and on blankets to 20 per cent. The duty on wool of all 
grades and descriptions was placed at 30 per cent., the iden- 
tical duty upon the higher forms of wool manufacture, so that 
the one duty largely offset the other. The ultimate effect of 
this anomaly of the law was thus described in the report of 
the United States Revenue Commission for 1866 : 

Under the tariff of 1842 no less than 1,800 looms were in oper- 
ation in the manufacture of broadcloths. Under the tariff of 1846, 
which put the same or a higher duty on wool, as on woolen goods, 
the manufacturers found it in vain to struggle against foreign 
rivals. The higher branches of the manufacture were abandoned ; 
soon every one of the 1,800 broadcloth looms in the country ceased 
work. The only branches of the manufacture which continued 
with activity were those like flannels, which were supplied by the 
common wool of the country, so superior in its spinning qualities 
as in itself to afford an advantage over the foreign manufacture. 
There was no longer a demand for any but the common wools. 



44 



The Saxon wool husbandry ceased with the manufacture of fine 
cloth which had called it into existence. 1 

The cloths manufactured continued to be confined to 
satinets, jeans, cassimeres, doeskins, beavers, flannels, and 
blankets. Near the close of the decade, Scotch plaids, in 
many beautiful colorings, were manufactured, and shawls 
were successfully made in considerable abundance. It has 
been stated that in 1843 the Middlesex Company made the 
first three-quarter fancy trouserings, which sold readily at $2 
per yard ; and it was during this decade that Edward Harris 
introduced his famous double and twist cassimeres. American 
shawls and blankets from the Bay State mills were awarded 
prizes at the International Exhibition of 1851. There were 
also many mills making tweeds, and the fancy cassimere was 
already in vogue. The decade was notable also as witnessing 
the first attempt at the manufacture of worsted stuffs in this 
country. 

IMPROVEMENTS IX WOOLEN MACHINERY. 

The decade was also important and interesting in the prog- 
ress it witnessed in the improvement of machinery for wool 
manufacture. It was during this period that the Crompton 
fancy power loom was generally introduced. Mr. Crompton 
had obtained a patent for his invention in 1837, but the de- 
pressed condition of manufacturing delayed its use for a 
number of years. As Mr. Samuel Lawrence has written, 
" Not a yard of fancy woolens had ever been woven by power 
loom- in any country until it was done by Mr. Crompton at 
the Middlesex mills in 1840." Within three years all the 
looms in the mill, 150 in number, had been altered, and the 
whole weaving power was turned upon fancy cassimeres. 
These original looms were 26 J or 27 inches wide, and the cloth 
was shrunk by fulling to 20 J inches. The popularity of these 
cloths were such that they successfully competed with the 
celebrated goods of the Messrs. Bonjean, Sedan, France, who 

1 Report of United States Revenue Commission, 1866, page 428. 



45 



had largely supplied the American market with a similar 
fabric made upon the hand loom. 

Not less important were the inventions of Erastus B. 
Bigelow, from which began the manufacture of carpets by the 
power loom. The essential features of this great invention 
were contained in Mr. Bigelow's loom for weaving coach lace, 
patented in 1837 ; but it was not until 1843 that the loom 
was successfully applied to the weaving of ingrain carpets in 
the mills of the Lowell Manufacturing Company. 

These inventions greatly reduced the cost of carpets, and 
thus largely stimulated their use. The foreign carpet manu- 
facturers, who still employed the hand loom, lost a large part 
of the American market hitherto theirs, as is plainly shown 
by the statistics of carpet importations in the earlier years of 
this decade. 

In 1848 Mr. Bigelow perfected his Brussels power loom, 
and the Bigelow Carpet Company, which he organized the 
year following, at once started 30 machines, each of which 
produced, with the aid of one weaver, 20 to 25 yards a day, 
from three to four yards daily having been the average prod- 
uct of a hand loom. 

The most comprehensive view of the domestic manufacture 
as it existed at the middle of this decade is again obtained 
from a private source in the shape of a little volume entitled 
" Statistics of the Woolen Manufactories in the United 
States," published in New York in 1845. We have not been 
able to ascertain the name of the author of this publication, 
which may be called the pioneer of the present textile direct- 
ories, but he was engaged in the sale of the condensing cards, 
and he states that in the collection of his data he visited, 
either in person or by attorney, every considerable wool man- 
ufacturing establishment then in existence. He presented a 
directory giving the name, the location, the machinery 
capacity, and the character of the products of 1,044 estab- 
lishments, exclusive of carding mills, operating 1,813 sets of 
cards ; and from this directory we have condensed the follow- 
ing bird's-eye view of the condition of the industry in 1845 : 



46 



w 
P 
O 
O 
O 

fa 

o 

525 

O 
i—i 

H 

P-t 

/^n I— I 

fa Q 

i-3 m 

S p 



P 

fa 

H 

i— i 

fa 

a 



5z5 

P 
fa 



m 

P 
fa 
fa O 

o o 

fa fa 
t> o 

I— I 

fa fa 
w O 

fa fa 

E fa 

i— i pq 

S3 

fa fa 

C tij 

§ H 

fa fa 

°5 

of H 
fa co 

S tH. 

fa w . 
& ^ p 

O -H fa 

fc h, £ 

r 5z5 H 
^ M o 

2 <» 

fa fa 
en g 

<J 

H 



<5 
fa 
fa 



(23 <» 
OS 

5 W 



tfl 



T3XI 



a? od 
a 



<D 



T3 

-a 



CC 



f Si's 

£tf a £ 



ci 



n 



^2 ■ 


m 


c3,d 


a 






<a 



w-g 



to .r- as 



,£5 ■ DD 

03-0 t^ 


CD 

00 






GD .Jh OS 




h~s 





,0 ■ 0Q 

■p b a 
as .-i <B 



O <M O -M r-l 



CO Ol IM CO rH 



t- lO CI 



fi> ■ 


CO 


es^g 


s 






cu 



H~a 



ao 



£ 



a >j * ^ 

r> 0? a 



OS- m 

2 tfi a! S 



£ 



-+H 



iOHHCO 



t- fflfflWr-KX) 



O CO CN r-t <N 00 



Total 

number 

of sets of 

cards. 


CO 

oo 

T-H 


00 
r-i 


TfHCOCOCS X 

^ co t— i oo t- i— I 

r-i -* CN 


CD 


OS OS t— tM t- 

CO tH -*tH CM 
-* i-H 


CO 

CO 


<M iH 


l-l 

i— l 


t~ CO CO CO 
CD 



rt ,<= ;£ -£ ,3 O O ,,, 

eh p ^ g 4i .h cj c 



OO OO CO r- 1 o o 
<N lO t- -* ■* (M 



CD O rH •«* CD 



xa i- os co co co 



a ^ 



H 

a cp cu 



qq ce 3 

^ I-H 

*-§ 1 



CU 

CS 

73 



«3 ^ 






c3 
CJ 0) 5 CJ c3 



a 
s- 

o 

Xfl 

H 
o 
H 



>5 

C4rM 

as 

•h as 



cS 
OQ 

a 



c3 
o 



P 

2^ 



,2 bO 
.S « 



b5hS 



47 



Another differentiation of this information is valuable as 
indicating the relative capacity of these mills. The table 
below groups the mills existing in 1845 according to the 
number of sets of machinery the} T contained : 



NUMBER AND CAPACITY OF WOOLEN MILLS IN UNITED 

STATES IN 1845. 



States. 


1-set 
mills. 

742 


2- set 
mills. 


3-set 
mills 

66 


4-set 
mills. 


Over 

4-set 
mills. 


o 

o 

la 


a 

bn 
a 

6 


O 

a 
5 


Total 


151 


32 


53 


1,044 


132 


1,176 






266 

369 
21 
86 


93 

46 

4 

8 


45 

19 

1 

1 


19 

11 

1 

1 


40 
12 

' 1 


463 

457 

27 

97 

463 

28 
58 
76 

141 
40 

120 


35 
51 
20 
26 


498 




508 




47 




123 






Total New England States . . 


266 

20 
42 

57 
49 
20 

78 

369 

274 

6 

78 

2 

9 


93 

3 
13 
11 
33 
13 
20 


45 

3 

2 
4 

21 
4 

11 


19 
1 

" 1 

13 

' 4 


40 

1 

1 

3 

25 

3 

7 


35 

5 

7 

8 

10 

*5 


498 

33 
65 




84 
151 




40 




125 








46 

27 

1 

13 


19 

11 
1 
6 


11 

6 
2 
2 
1 


12 

8 

2 
1 
1 


457 

326 
10 

101 

4 

16 


51 

21 

5 

14 

2 
9 


508 
347 




15 




151 




6 




5 


1 


25 






. Total Southern States .... 


21 
15 


4 
1 


1 
1 


1 
1 


. • . 


27 
18 


20 

11 
3 
1 
3 

' 2 


47 
29 




















1 
















3 




6 


3 








9 


9 










2 


















Total Western States .... 
Ohio 


86 

68 
6 
6 
6 


8 
8 


1 
1 


1 
1 


1 
1 


97 

79 
6 
6 
6 


26 

11 

3 

' 7 
2 
3 


123 

90 




6 












9 












6 












7 
















2 
















3 



















There were but 53 mills containing over four sets of cards, 
40 of which were located in the New England States, and the 
remainder, except one in Ohio, in the middle states, chiefly in 



48 

New York and Pennsylvania. The largest mill was still the 
Middlesex, which had grown from 27 sets in 1836 to 36 sets, 
and was now employing 1,500 operatives, and manufacturing. 
119,000 yards of broadcloths and 624,000 yards of kersey- 
meres per annum. The mill was then under the management 
of Samuel Lawrence, and owned by Lawrence, Stone, & Law- 
rence, of Boston. " It is truly delightful," wrote the com- 
piler, " to witness with what wonderful regularity every 
department of this extensive establishment is conducted, each 
managed with a celerity, dispatch, and regularity that can not 
be surpassed in this or any other country." He is equally 
enthusiastic in speaking of the Farnum mill at Waterford, 
Worcester county, the second largest cloth mill in the United 
States, employing 350 male and 150 female operatives, to 
whom $70,000 was paid in wages, running 25 sets in three 
mills, and using 1,100,000 pounds of the finest American 
wool, which was converted into 62,400 yards of broadcloth, 
468,000 yards of fancy kerseymeres, and 104,000 yards of 
plain kerseymeres. The Farnums were among the first to 
enter upon the manufacture of fancy goods. 

A third typical establishment of the era was the New 
England Worsted Company, at Saxonville, running 16 sets 
of cards and 20 combing machines, and manufacturing 
350,000 pounds of worsted yarns, 800,000 pounds of woolen 
yarns, 30,000 pieces of bunting, and large quantities of blan- 
kets, flannels, and negro cloths. 

Writing of the Hartford Carpet Company, at Thompson- 
ville, Connecticut, chartered in 1828, the compiler states that 
it was then consuming 1,000,000 pounds of wool, manufac- 
turing Axminster, Wilton, Brussels, three-ply, super ingrain, 
damask, and Venetian carpets, and rugs of every description, 
to the extent of upward of 1,600 yards daily, and " the colors 
are equally durable with those of foreign importation." A 
still larger mill at Tariffville, in the same State, and operated 
by the same company, was consuming 1,200,000 pounds of 
wool and paying $150,000 a year to 1,000 operatives. 

These mills were hardly typical of the period, for they 



49 



were famous as the extreme development of the industry; 
and it is interesting to note that the largest mills of that 
time were less than one-half the capacity of many of the 
present-day establishments. " It is apparent," says the com- 
piler in his preface, " that the woolen manufacture of the 
United States is more indebted to the patriotic enterprise and 
indomitable perseverance of individuals, whom primary diffi- 
culties and even reverses could not discourage, rather than to 
any special legislation or popular countenance and apprecia- 
tion. It has passed through all the vicissitudes of prosperity 
and adversity, now suddenly elevated, then as suddenly de- 
pressed, to-da}^ courting investment and anon deserted by 
capital, until ultimately it has conquered its vantage ground 
and established itself upon a munificent basis for the inherit- 
ance of prosperity." 

That the wool manufacture was exceptionally prosperous 
about the time of the publication of this volume and later, we 
have abundant evidence. In his volume on " Sheep Hus- 
bandry in the South," Hon. Henry S. Randall publishes a 
letter from S. Newton Dexter, of Whitestown, the managing 
director of the Oriskany Manufacturing Company, " a gentle- 
man equally distinguished for his correct and able business 
character and for the capacity and range o£ his information 
on all topics connected with the wool manufacture," under 
date of April 24, 1847, from which we make these extracts : 

I am inclined to think that you overestimate the profit of manu- 
facturing woolen goods, although I admit that in well-managed 
institutions that have the most improved machinery, with an 
abundant capital, the profits have at times been very large indeed, 
and our friend, Samuel Lawrence, of whom you speak, is the most 
prominent example of such a manufacturer within my knowledge. 
Every new manufactory erected, if built with judgment, 
has one advantage over those already in operation, and that is, it 
has availed itself of all the improvements of those in operation, 
and as machinery is constantly being produced at cheaper rates, 
a factory of increased capacity will probably cost less money. 
. The Oriskany Manufacturing Company is the oldest com- 



50 



pany now manufacturing woolen goods in the United States. It 
has made satinets which have sold readily at $3 per yard, and 
cloths which have as readily sold for $12 per yard. Satinets fully 
as good can now be bought at 75 cents, and handsomer if not 
better cloths for $3. And yet the Oriskany Manufacturing Com- 
pany was perhaps never doing better than now. This company 
availed itself of the opportunities offered last year to obtain wool 
very low to purchase a supply for nearly two years. This year the 
business will be good — that is, pay a profit of 10 per cent, on 
investments ; but I do not believe it will pay more. I will furnish 
you with a brief estimate : 

A mill with a capital of $100,000 will manufacture, 

say, 90,000 yards of 6.4 cloth, which will bring in 

market an average of $1.50 per yard, or . . . $135,000 

To get these cloths into cash (for they are 

sold at 8 months, and are charged with 

commission of 5 per cent.)? and other 

charges, equal in all, interest, boxing, and 

transportation, to 12 per cent. . . . $16,200 

Cost of 225,000 pounds of wool at 30 cents . 67,500 

Cost of 3,300 gallons sperm and lard oil at $1, 3,300 

Cost of soap, soft and hard .... 3,500 

Cost of 800,000 teasels .... 1,000 

Cost of dyeing materials of all kinds . . 11,500 

Cost of fuel 1,000 

Cost of paper, tape, twine, nails, lumber, 

cards, candles, etc. . . . . . 3,000 

Cost of labor, $5,000 per quarter, or . . 20,000 

Insurance ....... 2,000 

$129,000 



You may think $1.50 a low average for cloths, but it must be a 
very fair cloth to bring that sum, I assure you. You may also 
think 12 per cent, a high charge for getting these cloths into cash, 
etc., but it is scarcely what we pay ; and the records of our wool 
book will show that 30 cents is the cost of such wool as we work. 
And our books will prove that it has taken, for many years past, 
2 J pounds of wool to make a yard of broadcloth. There is 6 per 
cent, left for profits here, because 1 have not allowed one cent for 



51 



repairs or taxes or for agents' salaries, which will swell the ex- 
penses fully up to $131,000, within a fraction of swallowing up all 
over 4 per cent. 

1850-1860. 

The census of 1860 proves that the progress of the wool 
manufacture in the previous ten years had not been as rapid 
in proportion to the growth of the country as in the decade 
ending in 1850. This is the more noteworthy because it was 
a decade marked by extraordinary advances, not only in the 
material and industrial development of the country, but in 
all the mechanial appliances of the manufacture. Wider 
cards were now generally in use, and looms were wider 
and much simplified. In the finishing department the 
fulling mills, gigs, shears, and presses were all greatly im- 
proved, the effect being to increase product, improve quality, 
and reduce the cost of manufacture. 

The tariff of 1846, in force during the greater part of the 
decade, was, as we have seen, not favorable to the promotion 
of the industry. It imposed the same rate of duty, 30 per 
cent., upon wool and manufactures of wool, except upon 
worsteds, which were dutiable at 25 per cent., and blankets, 
which were dutiable at 20 per cent., the effect of which was 
to deprive the manufacture of advantage from the duty 
upon goods which involved the use of foreign wool. We 
have seen how this tariff affected the manufacture of fine 
broadcloths. It prevented any advance in the worsted 
manufacture, and necessarily confined the industry to such 
goods as could be made to advantage from the domestic 
wools, of which the supply continued to be inadequate. 

The records of the year 1850 may be taken as a measure 
of this inadequacy. The domestic clip of that year was given 
by the census at 52,516,959 pounds, an increase of but 6,714,- 
855 pounds in ten years. The imports for the same year 
were 18,695,294 pounds, or 26.25 per cent, of the total supply 
of the manufacture. In the subsequent year they rose to the 
unprecedented total of 32,607,315 pounds, and they averaged 
for the decade 24,583,639 pounds per annum. Of the 



i 



52 



18,695,294 pounds of outside supply thus received, in 1850, 
11,770,607 pounds were from South America, and of these 
the bulk were the mestizo wools of the Argentine Republic. 
The remainder of the wool imports were .chiefly the low 
Turkey wools which were employed in the carpet manu- 
facture. 

The mestizo wools were enough cheaper than the domestic 
wools to permit their employment to advantage in admixture 
with the latter, and even after payment of the duty to effect 
a reduction in the cost of manufacture ; but they were acces- 
sible to foreign manufacturers at a price correspondingly less, 
and the advantage thus secured was reflected in the statistics 
of imported manufactures. The entered value of these im- 
ports in 1850 was 119,392,871, and they rose rapidly in 
quantity throughout the decade, reaching a total value of 
137,904,473 in 1854, and having an average value for the ten 
years of $31,333,273, as against an average value in the 
previous ten years of 113,005,852. 

In 1860 the importations rose to $43,141,988 in value, 
which was 34.83 per cent, of the total supply of goods as 
determined by the census of domestic manufacture and the 
statistics of imports. 

Mr. George William Bond, who was personally interested 
in the manufacture at this time, epitomized the condition of 
the industry in the decade as follows : " Under the impulse of 
the tariff of August 30, 1842, manufacturing slowly revived 
for a time (after the prostration of 1837), but woolen manu- 
facturing was as a whole unprofitable until after the passage 
of the act of 1857." 

The act of 1857 effected a radical change in the economic 
status of the industry. While it reduced the duty on woolen 
goods from 30 to 24 per cent, it partially compensated the 
manufacturers for this reduction by admitting, free of all 
duty, wools valued at not over 20 cents a pound, and fixing 
the duty on all other wools at 24 per cent, ad valorem. It 
was still an inequitable adjustment as to the higher-priced 
wools, but as the mestizo and Cape wools, by reason of their 



53 



cheapness, were exempted from all taxes at the custom-house, 
the manufacturers generally accepted the status thus estab- 
lished as an improvement over any which the law had fixed 
under any prior tariff since that of 1816. The immediate 
effect of this tariff, putting cheap grades of wool on the free 
list, wrote Mr. Bond, was " a sudden and rapid rise in the 
value of all wools in the markets of production to a point 
far beyond the duty, and in most cases beyond their value in 
the consuming markets of Europe." This result was unex- 
pected; the consequences which might otherwise have natu- 
rally been visible in the industry were swallowed up in another 
event. 

The law of 1857 had hardly become dry on the statute 
books before the industry, in common with all others, was 
overwhelmed in the financial crisis of 1857. The disaster 
brought by this crisis was particularly severe upon the wool 
manufacture. The bankruptcy of many of the largest cor- 
porations ensued, causing the downfall of a number of the 
leading commission houses and the collapse of smaller woolen 
mills located in all parts of the country. For a time wool 
prices were merely nominal, and many descriptions were un- 
salable at any price. The recovery was gradual, but when 
once under way it was followed by an activity in manufactur- 
ing which equaled that following the tariff of 1842. The 
census of 1860 would have shown greater advances had it not 
been so immediately preceded by the crisis of 1857, from the 
demoralization of which the industry did not fully revive 
until after the stimulus of the war of 1861-1865 began to be 
felt. 

Nevertheless, the returns of wool manufactures showed an 
increase of 62.65 per cent in ten years. The value of woolen 
and mixed goods made in 1850 was $49,636,881. In 1860 it 
amounted to $80,734,606. The establishments numbered 1,673, 
of which 467 were in New England, 793 in the middle, 333 
in the western, two in the Pacific, and 78 in the southern 
states. The aggregate capital invested in the business was 

12,849,932, and it employed 32,632 male and 26,890 female 



54 



hands, 639,700 spindles, and 16,075 looms, which worked up 
98,379,785 pounds of wool, the value of which, with other 
raw materials, was 146,649,365. The foregoing figures in- 
clude satinets, Kentucky jeans, and other fabrics of which the 
warp was cotton. In the manufacture of these mixed goods 
the amount of cotton consumed was 21,140,403 pounds. 

The largest amount of woolens was made in New England, 
where the capital employed was 126,235,053, and the value of 
the product $50,097,056, a little more than the total value 
reported for the United States in 1850. More than half the 
capital and one-half of the product of New England belonged 
to Massachusetts, which had 162 factories of large size. Con- 
necticut ranked next. The value of woolens produced in the 
middle states was $25,234,314, in the western $3,172,912, and 
in the Pacific and southern states $2,230,324. Pennsylvania, 
next to Massachusetts, was the largest producer, having 510 
factories, which made $13,016,082 worth of woolen and 
mixed fabrics, an increase of 145 per cent. The product of 
222 establishments in the city of Philadelphia had a value of 
$8,919,019. 

The State of New York held the third rank in relation 
to this industry, its manufactures amounting to more than 
$9,000,000. The woolen manufactures of Maryland showed 
an increase of 117 per cent. In Ohio, which produced in 
1850 a greater value of woolens than all the other western 
states, there was a decrease from the product of 1850. In 
Kentucky, which was then, next to Ohio, the largest manu- 
facturer of wool west of Pennsylvania, the product was 
$856,926 and the increase in ten years 169 per cent.; while in 
Indiana, which ranked next, it was 216 per cent., and in Mis- 
souri 182 per cent. , » 

This census accorded the eighth rank to the wool maim- 
facture among the great industries of the country, it being 
exceeded, in the value of its products, by boots and shoes, the 
clothing manufacture, iron, lumber, flour and meal, leather 
and skins, and cotton manufactures, the value of the products 
of the latter being given as $115,681,774. 



55 



Some interesting details of products accompanied the cen- 
sus of 1860. The number of yards of cloth produced was 
124,897,862, in addition to 6,401,206 pounds of yarn for sale 
296,874 pair of blankets, 616,400 long and square shawls, 
besides table covers, felted cloths, coverlets, etc. These totals 
included, as before and since, satinets, Kentucky jeans, and 
other fabrics made upon the cotton warp ; and the total 
quantity was equivalent to nearly four yards to each person 
in the United States. 

As the census of 1860 marks the close of the first period 
of the wool manufacture in the United States, before it took 
on the distinctive characteristics imparted by the war of 
1861-1865, and which have since distinguished it, it will be 
well to point out some of its peculiarities at this time. 

Worsted goods were made by two factories in Massachu- 
setts and one in New Hampshire ; viz., the Pacific Mills at 
Lawrence, the Hamilton Woolen Company at Southbridge, 
and the Manchester Print Works. These three mills em- 
ployed a capital of 13,230,000, consumed 3,000,000 pounds of 
wool and 1,653,000 of cotton, and their aggregate products 
were valued at $3,701,278, and consisted of 22,750,000 yards 
of all wool and cotton warp goods, mousselines de laine, 
bareges, cashmeres, challies, reps, etc., for ladies' wear. They 
also made worsted carpet and hosiery yarns for sale. The 
census of 1860 informs us that the gray mousseline de laine 
manufactured by the Manchester mills at this time was made 
with No. 37 cotton warp and No. 40 wool filling for the coarser 
varieties, and the finer grades with No. 70 cotton warp, spun 
on the Potter mule, and No. 50 worsted weft spun on the 
Smith mule. These three establishments were all that were 
reported at the census of 1860 as engaged in the worsted 
manufacture, although previous reports had indicated a much 
larger number of worsted manufacturers. The Massachu- 
setts census of 1845 indicated ten small establishments as 
then in operation in that State, employing 846 hands, and 
producing 2,321,338 yards of woven goods, valued at $382,- 
858, and 617,360 pounds of yarn, valued at $271,708. Excel- 



56 



lent fabrics of mousseline de laine, alpaca, and Orleans 
cloth were made about this time by the Ballardville Com- 
pany at Andover. The New England Worsted Company at 
Saxon ville, Massachusetts, which failed in 1837, had done 
a considerable business previous to that date, employing the 
New England comb, in the very first combing done by ma- 
chinery in this country. 

In the woolen goods manufacture the distinctive feature of 
the decade was the tendency to fancy goods. Patterned 
woolens had been chiefly imported prior to 1850 from Sedan 
and Elboeuf in France, Verviers in Belgium, and the west of 
England. The fashion for these goods became so pronounced 
that many establishments now turned their whole machin- 
ery upon them, with results on the whole very satisfactory. 
The- ten years ending with 1860 will always be remembered 
as the period when the styles and fabrics for men's wear were 
of greater variety than ever before or since. Vests were 
made from brilliant patterned cassimeres, velvets, brocades,, 
and silks, but rarely of the same material as the trousers. 
These last were plaids, checks, stripes, and mixtures, run- 
ning largely to light and medium colors, and extravagant in 
pattern. These tendencies of fashion were trying to manu- 
facturers beyond the conception of the average person, and 
increased the risks and diminished the profits of manu- 
facture. 

1860-1870. 

While the census of 1860 was still being compiled, the 
wool manufacture entered upon a new chapter which was 
to mark its advance to a rank nearly equal to that it had 
long since attained in England, France, and other European 
countries. The war of 1861 recreated the American wool 
manufacture. It established conditions very closely resem- 
bling those which arose in the war of 1812, and resulted at 
that time in a sudden and abnormal advance in the industry. 
The after-results, however, were widely different, complete 
collapse following in the one case, and an accelerating prog- 



57 



ress in the other. The need for revenue led to a large 
increase in duties from time to time, as the war progressed, 
under which the wool manufacture obtained the highest pro- 
tection it had ever received. The requirements of the 
government for army clothing created a constant demand for 
certain lines of goods, which at times taxed to the utmost the 
resources of all the mills engaged upon them. 1 

The high prices which prevailed made profits large, and 
fortunes were accumulated with rapidity and ease. New mills 
started into existence, and many whose machinery had been 
adapted to the manufacture of cotton were converted into 
woolen mills, a tendency which was further stimulated by 
the prolonged cotton famine. 

Without entering into elaborate details regarding the 
remarkable development of this decade, we may add that it 
resulted in an enormous diversification of the industry, — what 
it had always before conspicuously lacked, — and in the estab- 
lishment of mills for the maufacture of every line of woolen 
goods for which there was any demand. At the end of the 
decade this diversification had become one of its chief charac- 
teristics, one which it retains, and one in which it may be 
claimed to surpass the industry in any other country. Im- 
portations of woolen goods fell off to a point lower than 
the average for the previous twenty-five years. The enormous 
prices which the raw material commanded stimulated the 
farmers to an increase of their flocks. The domestic clip 
increased with a rapidity unprecedented in any country, not 

1 George William Bond estimated, from official reports received from the quartermaster 
general of the United States of the quantities of woolen goods purchased for the army in 
1862 and 1863, that the quantity of wool consumed in our mills for army use was as follows, 
in the years named: 1862, 51,400,000 pounds; 1863, 61,300,000 pounds; 1864, 61,300,000 
pounds. To this must be added the consumption of the navy, and for cartridges, and the 
grand total cannot vary much from 200,000,000 pounds. We may compare these con- 
ditions with the condition of the country at the commencement of the war of 1812, when the 
Secretary of War was compelled to ask Congress for permission to import 5,000 blankets for 
the supply of the Indians. 

" From our own looms we furnished in one year no less than 35,000,000 garments to 
our soldiers and supplied cloths to the army and navy which in three years consumed 
200,000,000 pounds of wool. Of the cloths thus furnished, an assistant quartermaster- 
general in charge of these supplies officially says: 'It has been demonstrated that 
American army cloths are much stronger than those in use in the armies of Europe. ' " 
— Report of United States Revenue Commission, 1866. 



58 



even surpassed by the extraordinary growth of the Austral- 
asian clip in later years. The clip of 1859, reported at 60,- 
264,000 pounds, had nearly doubled in 1862, when it was 
reported at 106,000,000; and it rose to 123,000,000 in 1863, 
142,000,000 in 1864, and 155,000,000 in 1865. Even this 
increase did not meet the demand for raw material, and the 
imports of wool rose during the same j^ears in even greater 
degree, jumping from 26,000,000 pounds in 1859 to 75,000;- 
000 in 1863. A slight falling off occurred in the following 
years, and these imports of wool were not again approxi- 
mated until 1870. 

A remarkable change in the raw materials consumed by the 
industry grew out of the legislation of this period. Under 
tariff of 1857, by which wools costing twenty cents or less 
per pound were admitted free of duty, the mestizo wools of 
South America and the Cape of Good Hope wools were im- 
ported free of duty. Under the law made in 1864 many of 
the mestizo and Cape wools were admitted at three cents duty, 
which was but a slight barrier to their importation. The 
tariff of 1867 raised the duty on these wools to ten cents a 
pound and ten per centum ad valorem. What had thus far 
been a principal source of supply of raw material was thus 
practically excluded from the country. Up to that time 
these wools were the basis of our most important manu- 
facture, that of fancy cassimeres. This had been made pos- 
sible by the invention of the Crompton fancy loom, and of 
burring machinery, which permitted the use of Buenos 
Ayres wools, purchasable at extremely low prices, because 
of the burr they contained, which made them unsalable. The 
fancy cassimere manufacture may thus be said to have been 
developed by the use of mestizo wool, the imports of which 
fell from 36,760 bales in 1866 to 6,000 bales in 1868 ; and a 
practical revolution in the fancy cassimere industry was 
effected by the change of the material used from mestizo to 
domestic wool. 

Another change of like character, and equally radical, 
occurred, through legislation, in the supply of wools adapted 



59 



to the worsted manufacture. Under the Canadian reci- 
procity treaty of 1854 the long combing wools of English 
blood, peculiar to that country and Canada, and then exclu- 
sively employed in this branch of the industry, were free of 
duty if grown in Canada, and were imported in large quanti- 
ties. Practically none of these wools were grown in the 
United States at that time, and the domestic worsted manu- 
facture, which developed rapidly in this decade, was depend- 
ent upon the Canadian clip, the free supply of which had been 
a great stimulus to its growth. The Canadian reciprocity 
treaty expired in 1866, and the wool manufacturers made an 
ineffectual attempt to secure the exemption of these wools 
from the high rates of duty imposed by the tariff act of 1867. 
It is undoubted^ true that the first effects of the con- 
ditions created by the war were to deteriorate the quality of 
the manufacture. Goods moved rapidly, and manufacturers 
wasted as little time as possible in passing the material 
through their mills. The ready markets tempted to the use of 
inferior materials, as well as inferior workmanship, and adul- 
teration was carried so far that it became a by-word. But 
this phase of development passed as quickly as it arose. 
Competition became closer as conditions grew normal, and 
before the close of the decade the American manufacturers 
had attained, both at home and abroad, a reputation they 
had not previously possessed, both for the style and salable 
character of their patterns and the finish of their goods. 
This fact was well attested at the Paris Exposition of 1867, 
where for the first time awards were made for American 
woolen goods. These awards, made to the Washington 
mills, S. Slater & Sons, H. Stursburg, and others, were 
accompanied by certificates commending the excellence and 
variety of the fabrics presented, their fitness for general con- 
sumption, and the reasonableness of the prices at which they 
were sold. The display of black broadcloths, doeskins, 
castors, blankets, beavers, and other card-wool fabrics made 
by these American mills, was accorded equal praise with 
similar lines of goods made in English and German mills. 



60 



The measure of the remarkable growth of the decade 
1860-1870 is clearly defined by the comparative figures. 
The value of products advanced from $80,734,606 to $217,- 
668,826. In making the comparison between the two 
periods, however, it is necessary to bear in mind the fact 
that the values of 1870 are currency values, and that the 
census was taken for a period during which the gold value 
of the paper dollar was 79.81 cents. The gold value of the 
above production was therefore $173,721,490, an increase in 
the value of products between the two censuses of 115.18 
per cent. 

The number of operatives employed about doubled, ad- 
vancing from 59,522 in 1860 to 119,859 in 1870, while the 
advance in wages paid was even more phenomenal, increas- 
ing from $13,361,602 in gold to $40,357,235 in currency. 

It is probable that no record of progress equal to that 
which occurred in the wool manufacture in this decade can 
be found in any industry, in any country, in a period of 
similar duration. 

The true measure of growth in the decade is the quantity 
of raw material consumed, a unit of measurement uninflu- 
enced by the financial condition of the country. The con- 
sumption of wool in 1860 was 98,379,785 pounds, which in- 
creased in 1870 to 219,970,174 pounds, or 123.59 per cent. 

The domestic clip increased during the decade from 60,- 
000,000 to 180,000,000, and the imports of wool from 26,282,- 
000 to 34,000,000 in 1869. Of the wool consumed in the 
manufacture, 46,581,105 pounds was enumerated as foreign 
wool, a proportion it is difficult to reconcile with the smaller 
figures of imports for this and previous years. 

Of the causes contributing to this advancement we have 
already said sufficient. They were : (1) The cotton famine. 
(2) The demand for army clothing. (3) The war tariffs, 
constantly becoming higher, and excluding imports with in- 
creasing rigor. (4) The general stimulus created by high 
prices and the unnatural activities of a war period. That 
the wool manufacture advanced to a point that could not be 



61 



sustained on a peace-footing basis became evident as soon 
as the war closed. For several years the wool manufacture 
suffered the usual consequences of over-production ; but 
they were much less serious than might have been expected, 
and not to be compared with those that followed the war of 
1812. The country was rapidly growing up to the measure 
of the development this industry had attained, and the tariff 
of 1867, which increased the duties both on wool and woolens 
beyond the point of the act of 1864, prevented foreign 
goods from securing any proportionate increase in this in- 
creasing market. 

The close of the decade found the wool manufacture 
thoroughly organized, for the first time, in all branches of the 
industry, and able to supply the greater portion of the public 
needs in each. The chief exceptions to this rule were in the 
line of fine broadcloths and of fine all-wool dress goods for 
ladies' wear. The goods now made included cloakings, 
beavers, and coatings, of carded wool, and worsted dress 
goods, mostly cotton warps in great variety, but including 
some of the "French" cashmere variety. On shawls some 
25 mills were employed, completely supplying the domestic 
market; over 30 factories were making flannels, and supply- 
ing about four-fifths of the market; about 45 mills were 
making blankets, with a capacity equal to the home demand. 
The hosiery and knit goods branch of manufacture was sub- 
stantially organized in this decade, and 248 mills were in 
operation in 1870. The carpet industry had attained enor- 
mous development, and consumed in 1870 more than 
25,000,000 pounds of wool. In. the manufacture of bal- 
morals, kerseys, and various mixed fabrics the increase was 
very great. But the worsted manufacture particularly had 
its heyday in this decade, the number of establishments en- 
gaged in it increasing from 3 to 102, and the value of its 
products from 13,701,378 to 122,090,331. A dozen mills were 
engaged upon worsted yarns for sale ; half a dozen upon 
reps, terry, and similar goods, and the remainder chiefly upon 
worsted dress goods, mohairs, poplins, Italian cloths, alpacas, 
delaines, armures, etc. 



62 

1870-1880. 

To properly understand the conditions under which the 
wool manufacture was carried on during this decade it is 
necessary to describe the legislative status which existed, 
without essential variation, during the entire period. This 
status was determined by the tariff act of 1867, which related 
only to wool and woolens, and was enacted with the concur- 
rence of wool growers and wool manufacturers. Up to this 
time there had never been any agreement between these two 
industries as to the relationship that should exist between 
duties on the raw material and the manufactured goods. 
Tariff after tariff had been enacted without regard to the fact 
that so long as it was necessary to use imported wool, any 
rate of duty imposed upon this raw material reduced by that 
amount, or by some portion of that amount, the net pro- 
tective duty upon manufactured goods, since it added the 
duty to the co&t of domestic manufacture as compared with 
the cost of foreign manufacture, and thus in some measure 
offset the duty on the manufactured article. This unscien- 
tific adjustment has proved particularly onerous under the 
tariff of 1846, wherein the duty on wool and on goods was 
the same, and under the tariff of 1857, so far as related to 
high-priced wools, with the saving fact, in the latter case, 
that the combing wools of Canada were then free of duty 
under the reciprocity treaty of 1854. 

These anomalies of earlier tariffs had been recognized and 
in a degree reconciled in the Morrill tariffs which were 
enacted during the war ; but the act of 1867 was the first 
tariff which undertook to found the relationship between the 
two classes of duty upon a scientific formula, established by 
actual experience. 

Out of this formula grew the system of compound duties 
on goods. In this compound system the specific duties on 
goods were adjusted so as to be equivalent, in theory at 
least, to the specific duties on the raw materials entering into 
the goods, leaving the ad valorem rate as a protective duty 
for the manufacturer. The basis of the compensatory duty, 



63 

as it was called, was the quantity of wool required in the 
manufacture of a pound of cloth ; and the theory of the tariff 
was to fix the specific duty at such a figure as to exactly re- 
imburse the manufacturer for the duties paid on that amount 
of wool, and thus to leave him in the same position, so far as 
foreign competition was concerned, as though his wool had 
been free of duty. The theory implied that the full amount 
of the duty on foreign wool was added to the domestic price 
of the materia], whether the same was imported or home- 
grown. As a matter of fact, this theory, while not always 
borne out by experience, has generally been so, with tem- 
porary variations due to unequal fluctuations in the foreign 
and domestic prices. 

Investigations and experiments made by manufacturers 
prior to the passage of the act of 1867, established the fact that 
it required four pounds of greasy wool to manufacture one 
pound of finished cloth. This calculation was based upon 
the shrinkage and waste of a mestizo wool of South America, 
which was the foreign wool chiefly imported at the time of 
the passage of this tariff, and also chiefly employed in the 
European manufacture. The Australian wool, which is 
to-day the chief source of foreign supply, was already begin- 
ning to play an extremely important part in the European 
manufacture ; but this wool was hardly known in the United 
States prior to the tariff of 1867, and its first considerable use 
in this country began in 1872, in which year the imports sud- 
denly jumped to over 12,000,000 pounds. 

The mestizo wool, as then marketed, was very dirty and 
burry, making its average shrinkage in scouring 67 per cent., 
and the further loss in manufacturing was calculated at 35 
per cent., making the following formula : 

Given, 100 pounds of greasy wool : 
Loss in scouring, 67 per cent., 
leaves 33 pounds clean wool. 

This clean wool loses 35 per cent, in manufacturing. 
33.00 pounds, less 35 per cent., or 11.55 pounds, 
leaves 21.45 pounds of cloth. 
100 pounds (greasy wool) -5- 21.45 = 4.66 pounds of wool to one pound of 
cloth. 



64 



It was not pretended that domestic wools whose shrinkage 
was much less than that of mestizo would consume four pounds 
to each pound of cloth, the contention being that in order to 
equalize conditions the law must take cognizance of the 
heaviest shrinkage wools accessible to foreign manufacturers, 
which was the material upon which the amount of compensa- 
tion must be based, in order to be an equalizing compen- 
sation. Neither was it claimed that all varieties of cloth to 
which these compensatory duties were applied would con- 
sume four pounds to the pound of cloth, even of the mestizo 
wools. On the contrary, these compensatory duties, neces- 
sarily made uniform, applied to goods into which cotton 
warps entered, and in which, in consequence, the amount of 
wool employed might be reduced to three, or even two 
pounds of wool to the pound of cloth. The argument was 
that the compensatory rate must be placed high enough to 
cover the added cost of the wool required to make the high- 
est grades of cloth, or otherwise the effect would be to inter- 
dict the domestic manufacture of those higher grades. As a 
matter of fact, the tariff of 1867, while favored by a majority 
of the manufacturers of that day, was strongly' opposed by 
other manufacturers, for whom the late Edward Harris, of 
Rhode Island, was the principal spokesman, on the ground 
that the compensatory duties were not sufficient to permit 
the successful manufacture of the high-grade goods of fine 
finish in which the loss from napping and other final proc- 
esses exceeded the allowance made in the calculation above 
given. Be that as it may, the basis of adjustment between the 
duties on wool and on woolen goods, accepted and adopted 
in 1867, has remained in the law until the present time. 

Upon the lower class of goods, of mixed material or con- 
taining a smaller modicum of wool, the rates of duty estab- 
lished by the act of 1867 proved essentially prohibitory in 
character, and this fact is to be borne in mind in the consid- 
eration of the extraordinary development of the domestic 
wool manufacture during the decade between 1870 and 
1880. 



65 



In certain important lines of woolen goods, the domestic 
manufacture now began to supply practically the entire home 
market. This may be illustrated by the case of blankets. 
From 1848 to 1864 the importation of blankets uniformly 
exceeded $1,000,000 annually in value, and in 1860 they 
reached a total value of $1,697,386. The shrinkage in their 
importation began in 1864. In 1867, the imports of blankets 
were valued at $948,349, and in the following year they fell 
to $55,006, and in several years during this decade they did 
not reach a value of $5,000. Flannels were affected in the 
same manner. Imports of these goods had never been 
large; but in 1860 their value was $178,890, and in 1866, 
$149,615. After the tariff of 1867 they fell rapidly, and in 
1875 the total value of flannels imported was only $1,852. 
Other lines, such as cloths and knit goods, were affected in a 
lesser but still in a marked degree, and the total imports of 
woolen goods of every description showed a marked propor- 
tional decrease. 

While there was no striking increase in the machinery 
capacity of the country during this decade, the value of the 
domestic products increased from $217,668,8^6 in 1870 to 
$267,252,913 in 1880. 

To estimate properly the percentage of this increase, it is 
necessary to reduce the value of the product in 1870, when 
the currency of the country was worth 79.81 cents in gold, 
to the gold basis, as was done in comparing that census with 
the census of 1860. The gold value of the product of 1870 
was $173,721,490 ; and the actual increase daring the decade 
1870-1880 in the value of manufactured products was there- 
fore 53.84 per cent., as compared with an increase in 1870 
over 1860 of 115.18 per cent., calculated on a gold basis. 

Such an increase in product, when compared with the 
increase in machinery capacity, indicates with sufficient 
clearness the great increase in efficiency of the machinery 
employed. 



6Q 



1880-1890. 

It is the purpose to review more in detail the advance of 
the manufacture during the last decade, the foregoing rapid 
summary of its previous development and conditions being 
merely preliminary. In the present connection it is only 
necessary to present, in summary form, the comparative 
results of the two censuses : 



GENERAL, HEADS. 



Number of establishments reported . . . 

Capital invested 

Value of hired property • 

Number of bands employed 

Wages paid 

Cost of materials used 

Value at factory of goods manufactured . 



1890. 



1 2,489 

2 $296,494,481 

$17,320,780 

219,132 

$76,660,742 

$203,095,572 

$337,768,524 



1880. 



2,689 
$159,091,869 

161,557 

$47,389,087 
$164,371,551 
$267,252,913 



Percentage 
of 



2 7.44 
s 86.44 

35.64 
61.77 
23.56 
26.39 



The progress of the decade was therefore healthy and 
rapid, quite equal in its ratio to that of any long established 
industry. 

In this comparison we must bear in mind the fact that the 
year 1879-1880, in which the prior census was taken, was a 
year of unusual and at times even speculative activity in the 
wool manufacture, and it is commercially recognized as 
the most prosperous year the industry has encountered since 
the war. On the other hand, the year 1889-1890 was a com- 
paratively dull year in the wool manufacture, in which a 
considerable portion of the machinery of active mills was 
idle during a part or the whole of the year. 

Another fact to be considered in making the comparison is 
the large reduction in the market value of the goods covered 
by this report. Probably no previous decade witnessed so 

1 Not including 267 idle establishments reporting invested capital amounting to 
$6,107,360. 

2 Decrease. 

3 The great increase shown in the amount of capital employed as between 1890 and 1880 
is more apparent than real, and is largely due to the fact that the capital returned for the 
census of 1880 did not take cognizance of all items which properly go to make up " live 
assets," and which, it is believed, are for the first time fully included in the census of 1890. 



67 

general a downward movement in prices. The value of 
products now given indicates a much greater quantity of 
production than the same value in 1880 or in any previous 
year would have signified. Something of the measure of this 
decline in value of products is indicated by the fall in the 
cost of raw materials. 



RETROSPECT AND SUMMARY. 

We find the domestic wool manufacture in 1890 at a point 
of development where it is fairly comparable with that of 
European countries. It is exceeded by that of Great Britain 
in the quantity of wool consumed, and probably in the value 
of product. It exceeds the wool manufacture of France, 
Germany, and every other continental nation in both particu- 
lars. Its advance during the last thirty years has been far 
more rapid than in any other country. This fact may be 
demonstrated by a comparison with Great Britain, whose 
statistics of wool consumption are more accurately compiled 
than those of any other European nation. 

Before 1860 we imported more woolen goods, in duty-paid 
value, than we made in our own factories. Our woolen 
manufacturers consumed but 98,379,785 pounds of greasy 
wool in that year. In 1890 their consumption had grown to 
434,000,000 pounds. In 1860 the British manufacture was 
consuming 300,000,000 pounds of wool annually, three times 
as much as our own. In 1890 the British manufacture con- 
sumed about 470,000,000 pounds, or but 8 per cent, more 
than our own. In these thirty years our manufacturing con- 
sumption of wool has increased nearly 340 per cent., while 
that of Great Britain has grown 57 per cent. 

In making this comparison we do not imply that the 
American manufacture is in every sense on a par with that 
of Great Britain. On the contrary, practical manufacturers 
familiar with the conditions of the industry in both countries 
are well aware of certain points of inferiority. Organization 
is better in England, and attention to details is more thorough 



68 



in consequence. In what may be called the economies of 
manufacture, the English surpass our own manufacturers as 
a rule, and are probably not surpassed in the world. They 
have been trained in these economies by their long experience 
in catering to foreign markets, where they encounter a con- 
stantly closer competition. They possess certain definite 
advantages growing out of the less mobile character of the 
operative classes. It is common for English workmen in 
the textile industries to pass their entire lives in the same 
mill at the same class of work. In the United States the 
factory population is constantly shifting, not only from mill 
to mill, but from town to town and into different occupations ; 
and there is increasing difficulty in obtaining and retaining 
properly trained help. These conditions naturally affect not 
only the economies of manufacture, but also to a certain 
extent the quality and character of the products. There are 
lines of high-grade goods in which the American product 
does not regularly approach the fineness and perfection of 
finish peculiar to the goods of foreign mills, which have been 
exclusively employed on those particular lines for generations- 
This is especially noticeable in connection with certain products 
which -are the peculiar glory of the French manufacture. 

Other conditions have had their bearing in the struggle to 
overcome this inferiority. Some of these may be described 
in detail. - 

I. In England the system of sorting and classifying wools 
is carried to such perfection that the wool market is amply 
supplied with all the different sorts, so that the manufacturer 
may profitably run his mill on the finest or the lowest sort. 
From the want of concentration of wool in our markets, and 
other causes, the American manufacturer sorts his own wool, 
and having it of different grades must make goods of corre- 
sponding grades. He must make low as well as high class 
fabrics ; and it has followed that there has been less tendency 
on the part of the domestic manufacture to confine itself to 
single specialties, and to base reputation and success upon 
those specialties. 



69 

II. Still again American manufacturers have been handi- 
capped by the comparative lack of expert training in the 
important departments of designing and dyeing. While the 
importance of a close and skillful attention to the selection, 
preparation, and spinning of wool is not easily overestimated, 
yet it has become more important every year that the highest 
skill shall be employed in determining the organization of 
fabrics, both as to pattern and coloring. The wool manufact- 
ure has entirely changed in the last sixty years in this 
respect. Formerly it was employed upon plain textures, of 
plain colors. The introduction of fancy goods has made it 
impossible to determine from one season to another what 
freak or fluctuation in the popular taste will next dominate 
the market. In this state of facts the designing department 
becomes the real key to the success of the mill. To study 
the tendencies of the times, to anticipate them if possible, to 
capture public favor by novelty of design or pattern, is an 
art which only long training can impart to great natural apti- 
tude. In the same way the mysteries of the dyehouse are a 
study worthy of the highest mind, and the introduction of 
aniline dyes has made possible new combinations and shades 
of coloring, which .are constantly appearing. 

III. The facilities for technical education in these im- 
portant departments of manufacture are superior, in all the 
manufacturing countries of Europe, to anything existing 
in the United States. Textile schools exist in Germany, 
Belgium, Austria, and France, equipped with the most skill- 
ful instructors and every appliance, supported wholly or in 
part by the government, which turn out annually large bodies 
of carefully trained young men, who take their places in the 
factories, where they supplement by practical experience 
the instruction they have received in every department of the 
manufacture. Of late years similar educational institutions 
have been established at the chief textile centers of England, 
also the recipients of public support, and they have rapidly 
advanced to an efficiency almost equal to that of the conti- 
nental schools. The influence of these institutions upon the 



70 



development of the textile industries of the countries in 
which they are located has been greater than we realize in 
this country, where we have depended, for the education of 
experts, upon the schooling of the mills themselves. One 
school, the Lowell School of Design, connected with the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has for many years 
supplied in a limited degree a training somewhat similar to 
that obtained in these foreign schools. In 1883 a second 
school, planned to cover instruction in all branches of the 
textile industry, was established in Philadelphia, in connec- 
tion with the Pennsylvania Museum of Fine Arts, through 
the liberality and public spirit of a few of the leading manu- 
facturers of that city. It has already achieved a notable 
success, and its graduates are found in the leading mills 
throughout the country. But its resources are limited, and 
its capacity still more so, in view of the enormous develop- 
ment of our textile industries during the last quarter of a 
century. The more successful of our designers and experts 
in dyeing still come to us from across the water. The United 
States is far behind Europe in its facilities for the training 
of men and women in the great work of the application of 

art to the textile manufacture. 

« 

IV. In the mechanical departments the best American 
mills do not at present suffer in comparison with those of 
any other country. We have seen that in the earlier years 
of the century our manufacturers were terribly handicapped 
by the inferiority of their machinery. This inferiority they 
gradually overcame, largely by original inventions, and in 
other particulars by the importation of foreign built machin- 
ery. The catalogue of American contributions to the me- 
chanical development of wool manufacture is so imposing 
that the late Dr, Hermann Grothe, the German expert, was 
led to write that it is not surpassed by that of any other 
nation, not excepting even England. He says there are 
repeated cases where American finishing machinery has been 
exported to England and France to become the basis of other 
improvements, claimed to be original, and essentially con- 



71 



tributing to the establishment in those countries of the textile 
industries. * This is prominently the case, he adds, with the 
machinery for fulling, gigging, and shearing cloth ; the full- 
ing mill with rollers is completely an American invention 
(that of John Dyer, patented in 1833) ; the invention of the 
double-crank shaft fulling mill was made by Levi Osborne 
in 1804, commencing a great series of constructions of the 
same principle ; all the English gigging mills were patented 
after the gigging mills in America of Christie, Olney, Bar- 
rows, Beck, Wells, and others, had appeared ; the merit of 
the invention of the cylinder shearing machine belongs to 
Samuel Griswold Dorr, and of the pressing machine with 
steam to Seth Hart, who received a patent in 1812. The 
invention of machinery for the manufacture of felted cloths 
is exclusively American in its origin. The principle of all 
the machines for burring wool used here and abroad, viz., 
striking the burr from a card or toothed cylinder by means of 
a rapidly revolving guard or blade, was first applied to a 
machine about 1833 by Michael H. Simpson, of Boston, 
whose improvements upon the Couillard combing machine 
were also of a nature so radical as to entitle them to rank as 
original inventions. Allusion has already been made to the 
Goulding invention, which dispensed with the billy, and 
which has been described by Dr. Hayes as "the most impor- 
tant of all contributions to the card-wool industry of the world 
during the present century." Power was first applied to the 
knitting machine in the United States in 1832 by Egbert 
Egberts, at Cohoes, New York ; and in the variety, the inge- 
nuity, and the importance of the knitting machines for making 
fashioned knit goods, the American contributions are more 
important than those of all other countries combined. The 
power carpet-loom, in all its varieties, is wholly an American 
conception, and it marks the greatest advance of the nine- 
teenth century. Of looms generally it is recognized that the 
American inventions and subsidiary appliances are superior 
in every respect to those of any other country, and they are 
now made and largel}* used abroad under concessions from 
the patentees. 



72 



In the subsidiary improvements of machinery for the 
manufacture of wool, in the scouring machines, 'the feeding 
appliances, the automatic st£>p-actions, the thousand smaller 
mechanisms which increase efficiency and production, which 
economize labor, and impart regularity and perfection of 
manufacture, the American contributions have been too 
innumerable to catalogue, and they have advanced the manu- 
facture, in matters of detail, quite as far, although by less 
radical steps, as the machines which involved the application 
of some new principle in mechanism. Many of our mills are 
in no sense behind the best English mills in the application 
of these minor mechanisms. While the American visitor 
in English mills will be struck with some radical points of 
difference in equipment, he will conclude that in point of 
general mechanical efficiency the industry occupies practi- 
cally the same footing in both countries. 

The most striking point of difference in mechanical organ- 
ization lies in the fact that English mills, like those of France 
and Germany, are as a rule equipped for special classes of 
work, to the exclusion of all others, while the American 
mills as generally are equipped for a great variety of proc- 
esses and of products. The advantages gained by this 
specialization are too obvious to be dwelt upon at length. A 
worsted spinning mill, equipped to make a particular number 
of yarn, will produce that yarn with a greater economy than 
a mill, equally perfect in machinery, which is compelled to con- 
stantly adjust that machinery to the production of yarns of 
different numbers. 

V. The United States is the only one of the large wool 
manufacturing nations which does not have free access to the 
wool markets of the world. It has developed its wool 
manufacture along lines very largely determined by this 
unique position among its competitors, and comparison with 
other countries is made more difficult on this account. To 
offset the fact stated, it is true that the United States is the 
only large wool manufacturing nation which supplies within 
itself the larger proportion of the raw material consumed in 






73 



its mills. Of the wool consumed by Great Britain in 1890, 
120,000,000 pounds was home grown and 350,000,000 pounds 
was foreign grown. France consumed in the same year 
124,000,000 pounds of domestic wool and 295,000,000 
pounds of imported wool. The United States reversed these 
proportions, consuming 258,681,000 pounds of domestic and 
114,116,000 pounds of imported wool, three-quarters at least 
of the latter being third-class wool consumed in the carpet 
manufacture. The consequence of this dependence upon a 
domestic supply has been to very largely persuade the home 
manufacturer into the production of those classes of goods to 
which the wools of the United States are best adapted, and 
for which it is conceded that they have no superiors. 

Since the policy of a tariff on wool for the purpose of 
fostering domestic production was first adopted by the 
United States, the conditions surrounding the wool supply of 
the world have radically changed. At that time each manu- 
facturing nation relied chiefly upon its home supply of the 
raw material — England, in particular, depending almost 
wholly upon her domestic clip, which had been recognized 
for centuries as one of the chief sources of the national 
wealth. In 1830 the exported wool clip of the Argentine 
Republic was barely 60,000,000 pounds ; in 1890 it was 
258,000,000 pounds, and in previous years it had sur- 
passed 350,000,000 pounds. In 1842 the Australian export 
of wool was 14,000,000 pounds, that being the first year in 
which its statistics were recorded ; in 1890 the Australian wool 
clip was 550,000,000 pounds. The Cape of Good Hope clip 
has increased from 26,000,000 pounds in 1860 to 128,681,000 
pounds in 1890. These three countries, which were hardly a 
factor in the \vorld's wool supply in 1830, are now the 
sources from which is drawn nearly two-thirds of the cloth- 
ing and combing wools. 

. The economic influences of these changes in the sources of 
the wool supply can hardly be traced or estimated, although 
they are visible everywhere. The United States has been 
exempt from them, to a very large degree, so far as the maim- 



74 



facture is concerned, not more than 36,000,000 pounds of 
these wools having reached this country in any one year. But 
the effect of this constantly increasing new supply of raw 
material, a supply which at times has seemed to increase faster 
than the demand, has been veiy perceptible in the domestic 
wool markets, where the prices of domestic fleece have sym- 
pathized very closely with the fluctuations in prices abroad. 
The average annual price of the average Port Philip fleece 
has fallen in the London market from 25 pence in 1873 to 16 
pence in 1890, and of Buenos Ayres average greasy from 7 to 
5 pence between the same years, while the decline in Ohio 
medium fleece was from 68 cents in 1873 to 37 cents in 1890. 
In view of the steady forcing down of the price of domestic 
wool, notwithstanding the tariff, by the pressure of increased 
production, on a large scale, in these countries of the southern 
hemisphere, where the conditions attending sheep raising are 
in some respects superior to those of our own country, it may 
be taken for granted that there will never be any considerable 
exportation of domestic wool. 

On the other hand, it is not to be expected that there will 
ever be any considerable domestic supply of the coarse long 
wools, which are chiefly relied upon by our great carpet in- 
dustry. The sheep producing these wools are comparatively 
worthless for mutton, their fleece is light in weight, and 
because of its coarseness brings a comparatively low price in 
the market. The culture of such sheep is not likely to be 
pursued as a final object where any purpose is entertained of 
improved sheep husbandry, and in those sections of the United 
States where the native sheep of Mexican origin have pre- 
dominated, the breeding up has been rapid. We have produced 
admirable carpet wools in Colorado and the territories, equal 
in whiteness, strength, ami length of staple to the best im- 
ported from South America. But the supply ol: domestic 
carpet wools now reaching the markets is merely nominal ; 
and it is a fact well recognized by intelligent growers that 
carpet wools cannot be grown with profit in this country, 
and therefore that practically they cannot be grown at all. 



75 



In the production of fine wools the domestic supply, instead 
of increasing in consonance with the increased requirements 
of the American manufacturers, is growing less from year to 
year. In Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and other States 
which are peculiarly adapted to the growth of fine wools, 
and from which the domestic supply has come, the number 
of sheep has been steadily declining for many years. While 
improvements in machinery have permitted a larger and 
larger use of the increasing supplies of territorial wools for 
purposes akin to those of the fine wools, }^et there exists a 
deficiency, which is made up by increasing importations of 
Australasian wools. It is frequently asserted that the United 
States possesses every variety of soil and climate and all the 
food conditions necessary to produce every grade of wool in 
quantities equal to the utmost domestic demand. Regarding 
this proposition, it is enough to say that if the conditions 
exist the supply does not, and that the deficiency must there- 
fore be made up from foreign sources. The increase in our 
importations of Australian wools has been the most marked 
characteristic of the industry during the decade ending with 
1890. The records of the Treasury Department do not con- 
tain the complete details of Australian wool imported in 1879 
and 1880. The direct importations were 399,518 pounds in 
1879 and 7,666,604 pounds in 1880, additional supplies com- 
ing in both years from the London auction sales. In 1890 
the importations direct and via London reached a total of 
11,950,158 pounds, and in several prior years were even more, 
reaching 16,577,974 pounds in 1886. While these importa- 
tions are insignificant in amount when compared with the 
domestic wool clip, they are very large in comparison with 
the domestic clip of strictly fine wool of a like grade. In 
making their purchases of Australian wool the American 
manufacturers and dealers are confined to the wools of light- 
est shrinkage, upon which the duty operates the least severely, 
and as the supply of light-shrinkage wools is limited, the 
American competition influences to increase their price over 
that of the other wools of like quality but heavy shrinkage, 



76 



thus further limiting their purchases as compared with what 
they would be under an ad valorem form of duty. 

It is difficult to estimate the effect of the tariff upon the 
price of domestic wool with any certainty, owing to the great 
variety of the conditions entering into the problem. That 
the American tariff has operated at times to depress the price 
of wool abroad is beyond question, and to the extent it has 
so operated the difference in the price of certain wools here 
and abroad has not been equal to the amount of the duty 
upon these wools. The most careful statement on this ques- 
tion that has been prepared was made for the sub-committee 
of the Senate Finance Committee in 1892, by Mauger & 
Avery, wool dealers, of Boston and New York. 

VI. Another disadvantage under which the domestic wool 
manufacture labors is the fact that it is, and always has been, 
subject to conditions by which styles and fashions are deter- 
mined abroad. London sets the fashions in men's wear 
goods, and Paris in women's wear goods. The American 
manufacturer, except the maker of plain and staple fabrics, 
is compelled to follow the styles determined in these cities, 
if he expects to command the home trade. This is always a 
difficult and sometimes an impossible thing to do, under the 
existing system which compels the manufacture of goods 
fully a year in advance of the season for whose wear they 
are intended. The difficulty is greatly increased by f the sur- 
vival of the prejudice born in the primitive days of the man- 
ufacture, in favor of foreign as against home-made woolens. 
This prejudice is disappearing, but it is still a positive factor 
which must be recognized. Mr. H. N. Slater, of Webster, Mas- 
sachusetts, in a letter written in 1888, stated the degree of this 
prejudice and the common method of meeting it, as follows : 

Our family has been engaged* in the broadcloth manufacture in 
this town since 183 8, during which time more or less fine Saxony 
wool has been required and imported for us. . . . These 
superfine cloths have never been sold directly to the merchant 
tailor as American, and could not now be if manufactured. The 
impression is general among the trade that they cannot be made 






77 



in this country, the average consumer wanting something " for- 
eign." During many years (40 years ago) our goods were made, 
tilloted, and sold (but not as a rule directly) as foreign goods. 
No merchant tailor thinks of offering a fashionable gentleman a 
fine American cloth. 

The habit of affixing foreign labels to home-made goods is 
still a common one, and is a device warranted b}^ a prejudice 
which is no longer justifiable on any ground, and is in 
strange contrast with the intense Americanism of our people 
in other respects. 

In the facts last stated may be found one of the chief 
reasons why the quantities and values of woolen goods 
imported into the United States have exceeded those in any 
other manufacturing industry, with the. single exception of 
iron and steel, almost from the beginning of the century. In 
its ratio to the value of the domestic product, the value of 
woolen goods imported has largely exceeded that of the 
imports of iron and steel. What this ratio for woolen goods 
has been at each of the census periods from 1820 is shown in 
the following table, which also gives the value per capita at 
each of the census periods, both of the domestic products and 
the importations, and the percentage of each in the total 
consumption of the year : 



78 



COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF DOMESTIC AND IMPORTED WOOL MANU- 
FACTURES, WITH PER CAPITA VALUE AND PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL 
CONSUMPTION, (a) 



domestic manufactures 

(census). 


Value 

per 
capita. 


Percent. 
of total 
consump- 
tion. 


NET IMPORTA- 
TIONS (AVERAGE 
FOR 10 TEARS). 

Value. 


Value 

per 
capita. 


Per cent, 
of total 

consump- 


Tears. 


Value. 


tion. 


1820 


$4,413,068 
14,528,166 
20,696,999 
49,636,881 
80,734,606 

217,668,826 
' 267,252,913 

337,768,524 


$0.46 
1.13 
1.21 
2.14 

2.57 
5.65 
5.33 
6.30 


39 
64 
60 
79 
72 
87 
87 
89 


&$6,859,702 
8,290,862 
13,950,772 
13,005,852 
31,333,273 
33,046,521 
39,537,694 
43,345,981 


$0.71 
0.64 
0.82 
0.56 
1.00 
0.86 
0.79 
0.69 


61 


1830 


36 


1840.. 

I860 


40 

21 
28 


1870 


13 


1880 

1890 


13 

11 



The value per capita of the domestic manufactures in 1870 
is a currency value, at a time when the gold value of the 
dollar averaged 79.8 cents. Allowance being made for that 
fact, the per capita valuation of the product has shown a 
nearly uniform increase in each decade since 1860, and was 
in 1890 just 2.10 times the value per capita in 1860. In 
other words, the increase in the industry has been in more 
than double the ratio of the increase in the population. The 
decrease in the per capita value of the imports of woolen 
goods has not been in the same ratio, showing that the con- 
suming capacity of the American people has kept steadily in 
advance of the increasing productive capacity of her wool 
manufactures. The percentage of foreign goods in the total 
annual consumption of our people is now no larger than in 
Great Britain. 

The method of selling the products of woolen mills 
through the agency of commissioned houses had its origin in 
the early part of this century. The house of Joshua Clapp, of 
Boston, established in 1821, is believed to have been the first 
store in America for the sale of American woolens on com- 
mission. His stock consisted of red flannels from the mills of 



a Cotton hosiery and knit goods, included in the census figures of this table, are not 
included in the value of imports. 
b Net imports tor year ending September 30, 1821. 



79 



Abraham Marlancl and Nathaniel Stevens, both located in 
Andover, Massachusetts, and a few pieces of American broad- 
cloth from the Crowninshield Mill at Danvers. Once or twice 
a month the stock was replenished by the receipt of goods 
manufactured in the meantime at the factories, which were 
brought from Andover to Boston in a one-horse wagon, each 
load consisting of from ten to twenty pieces of flannels, care- 
fully folded in paper wrappers. The business was from the first 
successful, and Mr. Clapp gradually extended his operations, 
becoming interested in the manufacture as well as sale of 
goods, eventually as the manager of the Litchfield Mill, in 
Torrington, Connecticut, owned by Hon. Frederick Wolcott. 
Other houses entered the commission business, and their 
members thus became more or less directly interested in the 
domestic manufacture. It was a time of transition in the in- 
dustrial development of New England. Changes occurred 
which were to determine the chief direction of the commer- 
cial energies of that section of the country. Boston had here- 
tofore depended upon her shipping and foreign trade as the 
chief source of her business activity, and the weight of her 
influence had been strongly against national legislation to 
build up these domestic manufacturing interests. In October, 
1820, at a meeting held in Faneuil Hall, Hon. Daniel 
Webster, speaking for this interest, predicted that under the 
legislation then existing " two generations would change the 
whole face of New England society." Mr. Webster's pre- 
diction was realized, for within the limits of the time he set 
Massachusetts became the chief wool-manufacturing State of 
the Union, as well as first among the cotton-manufacturing 
States, and the capital and energy of her commercial center 
were absorbed in the distribution of the products of these and 
other industries. The commission business grew with the 
growth of the mills, and the two lines of business became so 
intimately associated and blended through joint ownership 
that the points of demarcation were almost undistinguishable. 
There were advantages and disadvantages connected with 
this relationship ; but the lesson of experience has been that 



80 



the manufacturer has not as a whole been the gainer from it ; 
that it is a relationship peculiar to the formative period of 
industrial development and necessitated rather by ited 
capital than by inherent fitness. In the evolution of later 
years, emphasized by the harsh experiences of manufacturers 
in times of commercial crisis, the tendency has been steadily 
towards the independence of the producer in the direction of 
the selling of his own goods. The intervention of the jobber 
has to a large extent disappeared through the larger sale of 
goods directly to the most important consumers, thus tending 
to bring producer and consumer nearer together. But the 
absence of anything like uniformity, in methods of marketing 
products, is still characteristic of the American industry, and 
is very striking in comparison with the uniform system pre- 
vailing in Great Britain. 

In concluding this report the special agent may remark 
that he has been impressed throughout the investigation with 
certain peculiarities of the wool manufacture, in comparison 
with other industries, which distinguish it as an occupation 
requiring a high degree of intelligence and skill on the part 
of those who successfully conduct it. No branch of industry 
makes larger demands upon those elements of capacity and 
character which win success in manufacturing. The foreign 
manufacturer, in visiting our mills, is astonished at the great 
variety of operations carried on in single establishments, and 
at the high degree of administrative efficiency displayed in 
their management. There is that about the industry which 
attracts men of large ideas and capabilities. It offers ample 
scope for the employment of faculties of the highest order, 
and the field of success is comprehensive enough to fit the 
highest business ambition. The art of wool manufacturing 
becomes attractive and absorbing by its varieties, its possi- 
bilities, and even by its uncertainties. There is no recog- 
nized limit to attainment within it. Success serves but to 
stimulate to new endeavor. The creative instinct may find 
in it opportunity for exercise either in mechanical construc- 
tion or in new methods and varieties of fabrication. Artistic 






81 



taste is constantly spurred to adapt beauty of design to har- 
mony of color, to combine the ornamental with the useful. 
There is also an inspiration in the thought of developing and 
perpetuating a great national industry, venerable because, 
of its antiquity, benevolent because of its intimate relation- 
ship to the comfort, the happiness, and the prosperity of 
the people. 

The view taken in this report of the rapid progress, 
the peculiar difficulties, and the unique achievements of the 
United States in this industry justifies the conclusion that 
the wool manufacture as it stands to-day is among the fore- 
most evidences of the industrial resources of our country. 

[Note. — As stated in the introductory note, the above summary review 
of the development of the wool manufacture in the United States was written 
in 1890 as an introduction to the Eleventh Census Report on that industry. It 
is therefore necessarily incomplete ; and the reader who is interested to trace 
the growth of the industry between the years 1880 and 1890, and in the details 
of the historical development of the different branches of wool manufactur- 
ing in the United States, is referred to the volume of the Eleventh Census 
Reports on the Textile Industries, published by the Departmentof the Interior 
in 1894.] 









BJL '10 



